How is your P&P intranet site stacking up to meet your hospital’s needs?
How Often Do You Audit Your Systems?
Perhaps you do so only when an issue is brought to your attention?
A more proactive approach would be to have an annual calendar with each key process impacting patient safety listed on it. Plan the schedule around budget review time. That way if you have a costly strategy in mind that will improve poor systems, you can plan accordingly. So what would you audit if you needed to provide leadership with the details of your intranet system? You could start with a survey for front line staff – the users of the intranet site.
Questions Might Include…
- How often do you use the system?
- Do you need assistance to get into the system?
- Is the system easy to use?
- Is navigating through the site easy or a challenge?
- Is the site helpful?
- Did you find what you were looking for?
- How long did it take you to find the policy/procedure?
- Do you like using the intranet site for policies?
- If you could change anything about the site what would you change?
- Do you feel comfortable sharing you comments with your manager?
The Importance of First-Hand Experience
It is important to personally visit the units while surveying the staff. Ask to attend a staff meeting and explain why you want to attend and what you’re hoping to learn from it. Sometimes leadership does not have the time or ability to make the business case and as a P&P or patient safety advocate, you can make the case yourself. It is up to you to bring that message from the staff to administration and to the CIO (IT) so that they can make a decision. In effect, you are, per se, a mediator and an advocate for the front line staff. Explain to the staff that this process of storing and accessing documents impacts the organization in many ways. The intranet site needs to be efficient and information needs to be accurate.
Seeking Out Champions
Seek out the staff that ask questions, as that is a red flag that they might want to be part of the task force for revamping, piloting and championing a new P&P application on their unit. Having staff participate in the idea of helping roll out and being part of a demo of something this big will empowering for them. Go to another unit and do the same thing. It is so important to really look at systems to see whether they are working as they were intended.
Plan Do Check Act
Rolling out is not the end all be all. The model for change, performance improvement is PDCA (plan do check act). All of this is simply the “checking” stage. Based on what your survey findings are, you can then develop an action plan. And don’t forget to bring those unit staff champions with you! The leadership team needs to hear from them too.
Managing an intranet takes a lot of work and hospitals don’t have the funds to maintain a large IT support service. It is time to find out what will work for your staff, improve patient safety, and then act on it!
Nicola Heslip | Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality | PolicyMedical
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