• Collaborating on “hand-off” messages between Physical Therapy and nursing staff
• Writing specific messages about daily therapy sessions on a board in the patient’s room
• Standardizing information placed on the boards

What can your team do to encourage better communication between team members?

• Creating a wait list for patients who need to schedule surgeries
• Assigning a full-time employee to manage the wait list
• Using openings in the schedule to squeeze in emergency patients

What can your team do to improve patient satisfaction and efficiencies in your department? What else could your team do to relieve scheduling backlogs?

• Giving injections in the exam room, rather than the injection clinic
• Limiting the choice for physicians to two versions of the same vaccine to choose from—instead of several
• Huddling among medical assistants and physicians once or twice a day to determine which of their incoming patients need vaccines. Medical assistants then have the shots ready for those patients

• Providing loaner blood pressure kits to hypertensive patients who had trouble traveling to the clinic.
• Mobilizing patients to phone their providers every day with their blood pressure readings, furnishing the information needed in just a couple of minutes, without filling up an entire appointment slot.
• Increasing the number of free appointments available for blood pressure checks.

• Standardizing the workflow for collecting specimens and ordering lab tests
• Educating physicians about the medical assistants’ workflow and the couriers’ pick-up schedules
• Treating errors as an opportunity for coaching rather than discipline

What can your team do to collect and analyze data to make workflow improvements? What else could your team do to encourage everyone to speak up and share concerns, ideas and suggestions?

• Gathering caregivers from a range of disciplines to meet and round on patients together
• Listening with respect
• Encouraging nurses and other care givers to speak up, ask questions and offer suggestions

What can your team do to build an environment where workers feel safe sharing ideas and concerns? What else could your team do to engage everyone in performance improvement efforts?