Contribute to Continuous Improvement Systems and Processes

Quality approaches are a set of actions taken by an organisation to improve the quality of services or products. Continuous improvement is a quality approach that is based on the Japanese philosophy of kaizen. It refers to the continuous but gradual improvements that can be made to improve value. While continuous improvement or kaizen has its roots in manufacturing processes, healthcare organisations have adopted this process to ensure quality care for clients.

There three key principles involved in continuous improvement:

Firstly, continuous improvement involves a never ending and continuous process towards quality and efficiency. Organisations should continuously seek out new methods and procedures to reduce problems and waste. Given the ever-changing needs of clients, organisations also have to be flexible to adapt to new demands and remain competitive in their respective industries. In the context of healthcare, this involves better client experiences, health outcomes, and reduction in healthcare costs (Stelson et al., 2017).

Secondly, continuous improvement is incremental in nature. This suggests that improvements should be made in a step-by-step manner. However, technological innovations can quicken this process. Specifically, workers may use new technologies to assist with identifying organisations issues and find ways to minimise them.

Lastly, continuous improvement should involve the skills and knowledge of workers within the organisation. Furthermore, the wellbeing of workers should be considered throughout the process of continuous improvement.

Best Practice and Benchmarking

Best practice refers to optimal practice that is founded on evidence on factors that lead to improved client outcomes (Ham-Baloyi et al., 2020). In line with continuous improvement, best practice also involves a sustained effort in continuously tailoring and improving procedures to meet client needs.

Organisations may use benchmarking to determine best practice. Benchmarking refers to the process of comparing organisation performance, processes, and outcomes against the industry standards. To remain competitive in the industry, healthcare organisations may evaluate their performance on the various aspects of healthcare delivery, such as client safety and satisfaction. Organisations may use industry standards as a baseline for their performance and identify current trends in the industry that could help improve current processes. Having a comparison would allow organisations to identify gaps and inefficiencies in processes and assess their progress made towards improvement.

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Benefits of Continuous Improvement and Overcoming Barriers

When communicating the need for continuous improvement projects to workers, there are several factors to consider. The need for continuous improvement and its benefits should be clearly explained to workers. There are numerous benefits to continuous improvement. In addition to lower costs, continuous improvement methods can improve the safety and health outcomes of clients.

As continuous improvement also focuses on increasing employee engagement and improving employee wellbeing, it reduces employee turnover rate and the costs associated with hiring and on-boarding new staff.

Despite its benefits, there are factors that may pose as barriers to continuous improvement. Workers may be resistant to continuous improvement methods due to feelings of uncertainty about new initiatives. They may also be reluctant to adopt new methods for improvement due to a lack of clear goals and communication between teams, thus hindering motivation and collaboration across the organisation.

To address these barriers, the objectives of best practice and continuous improvement should be communicated to all workers. Communicating these to workers allows the organisation to develop an organisational culture for continuous improvement. Workers should be shifting from a reactive mindset, in which problem-solving procedures are only undertaken when there are issues, towards a mindset that aims to identify problems before they occur (Stelson et al., 2017). Furthermore, workers should also aim to eliminate root causes of issues and look out for ways to improve procedures.

Communicating clearly defined goals and how the project will be impacting the team or individual worker can help also foster interest and motivation in projects. Workers should be given an opportunity to share their opinions about changes made and should feel safe to do so without negative consequences. Accordingly, this reduces uncertainty faced by workers. Building upon this, staff in leadership positions encouraging and empowering other workers to make improvements by providing the needed resources such as time, funds, and technology.

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Communicating the Process of Continuous Improvement: The Shewhart Cycle

The Shewhart cycle can be used to communicate the process of continuous improvement to workers. The cycle breaks down the continuous improvement into four steps that occur in a cyclical nature. These steps are represented in the diagram below (Spath, 2021):

1. Plan - study the process
2. Do - make the change on a small scale
3. Check - observe the effects
4. Act - identify what was learned

Cycle is ongoing and continuous

In the first step, workers plan by investigating problems that have occurred and how the process can be improved. Next, workers take small steps to implement improvements or new processes. Once these have been implemented, workers undergo the checking step where they observe the effects and assess the effectiveness of the changes made. Finally, in the acting step, workers determine what has been learned in the process and determine if refinements need to be made. Following this step, the cycle is repeated to ensure the continuous improvement of processes.

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When setting up projects for continuous improvements, workers in a team should be aware of their individual roles and skills needed. From there, workers may identify if there is a need for mentoring or coaching. Mentoring and coaching aim to improve the skills and knowledge of workers. The process involves workers seeking feedback and guidance from a more experienced worker. Taking part in mentoring and coaching opportunities supports continuous development in organisations and it empowers workers to independently address issues and challenges faced (Hollywood et al., 2016).

To achieve effective mentoring and coaching outcomes, organisations have to first appropriately identify opportunities that are relevant to the needs of workers. A gap analysis involves assessing service quality by determining if there is a gap between the client’s expectation of a service and the client's perception of the service delivered (Willie, 2019).

The following are four common skills or services areas that a gap analysis can be conducted on:

• Record keeping: A lack of proper training in storing and assessing client records can negatively impact service delivery. Poor record keeping can also increase the risk of confidentiality breaches, where a client’s personal information is inappropriately released.
• Supply chain management: Supply chain management in health care involves reducing costs and wastage of medical supplies. Training may be needed to ensure that workers are purchasing the adequate number of medical supplies from the appropriate producers and distributing the supplies accordingly to the relevant individuals.
• Knowledge of products or services offered: Workers should be knowledgeable about the different types of services or products offered by the organisation and be able to communicate this information to clients.
• Client-centred care: Workers may need training on the communication skills needed to practice client cantered care. Client centred care involves listening to the client’s needs and involving clients in decisions surrounding the kind of support they would like.

Surveys can be conducted to gather information from workers. Survey questions should prompt workers to share their opinions on an organisation issue and the root cause of the issue. Furthermore, surveys allow workers to proactively share their opinions on how these issues may be resolved and whether training is needed.

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Organisations should aim to increase participative decision making in workers when undergoing continuous improvement projects. Workers should also be encouraged to exercise initiative, which involves carrying out relevant tasks proactively. Encouraging participation in decision making processes and exercising initiatives in workers were found to increase worker commitment to an organisation, job satisfaction, motivation, and creativity. Accordingly, these processes should be encouraged when carrying out continuous improvement projects.

Perceived Intentions

Perceived employer intentions were found to influence participative decision-making and exercising initiative (Little et al., 2020). Workers should have a clear understanding of employer intentions and the reasons behind why a project is being carried out. When workers understand that a project is driven by genuine intentions of improving organisation processes and employee wellbeing, they are more likely to participate. On the other hand, if workers perceive that the project is implemented with little thought or consideration, they are less motivated to take part in it. Therefore, in addition to clearly communicating the intent of projects to workers to increase worker participation, workers should be given the opportunity to express if they agree on project intents.

Freedom and Creativity

To encourage workers to participate in decision making and exercise initiatives, workers should be given freedom in work (Zubair et al., 2015). This involves allowing a worker to have control over how a task should be carried out. In addition to this, the task should effectively utilise the workers skills and knowledge. Overall, this creates a creative environment where workers feel comfortable with taking part in the decision-making process.

The team leader or manager of the group also plays an important role in encouraging workers to participate in decision making (Zubair et al., 2015). Leaders should foster a creative environment by encouraging workers to view things from a different perspective and invite workers to share these perspectives. Hence, it is important for all team members, including leaders or managers, to encourage participation in decision making processes by reinforcing freedom and creativity in work.

Successful implementation of continuous improvement projects begins with fostering an organisational culture of continuous improvement. Workers across the organisation should understand the importance of continuous improvement and utilise the appropriate mentoring or coaching opportunities. Finally, workers should be given an opportunity to share their concerns and perspectives on continuous improvement projects.

Gomez, B. (2019). [Image of man walking up blocks arranged like stairs with “continuous improvement” written on the top block]. Rever. https://reverscore.com/continuous-improvement-tools/

Ham-Baloyi, W., Minnie, K., & van der Walt, C. (2020). Improving healthcare: A guide to roll-out best practice. African health Sciences, 20(3), 1487-1495. https://doi.org/10.4314/ahs.v20i3.55

Hollywood, K. G., Blaess, D. A., Santin, C., & Bloom, L. (2016). Holistic mentoring and coaching to sustain organizational change and innovation. Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership, 2(1), 32-46.

Spath, P. L. (2021). Applying Quality Management in Healthcare: A Systems Approach. Health Administration Press.

Stelson, P., Hille, J., Eseonu, C., & Doni, T. (2017). What drives continuous improvement project success in healthcare? International Journal of Healthcare Quality Assurance, 30(1), 43-57.

Little, A., Wordsworth, R., & Malinen, S. (2020). Workplace exercise programmes – how organizational factors influence employee participation. Development and Learning in Organizations, 34(6), 37-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-10-2019-0252

Willie, M. M. (2019). Identifying training needs for healthcare organisations. World Medical Journal.

Zubair, A., Bashir, M., Abrar, M., Ahmad, S., & Hassan, S. Y. (2015). Employee's participation in decision making and manager's encouragement of creativity: The mediating role of climate for creativity and change. Journal of Service Science and Management, 8(3), 306-321. https://doi.org/10.4236/jssm.2015.83033