CHAMPIONS PROGRAMS

PRHI recognizes that improvements at the point of patient care depend on a team leader/champion, a change method that works, performance measurement, and shared passion for excellence. Our Champions programs are a series of professional development programs and demonstrations that the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) initiated to bring process engineering principles, systems thinking and other quality improvement tools into the hands of the region’s healthcare professionals. Those trained in the programs are linked in learning networks to further develop and spread understanding of these methods.

A flexible template developed for the programs calls for participants to receive training in PRHI’s flagship process improvement methodology known as Perfecting Patient CareSM (PPC). In addition, Champions are to conduct demonstrations using the method, receive on-site coaching in process improvement from PRHI, meet periodically with peers as a means of sharing experience, and publish and present findings as a means of disseminating replicable models for improvement. Champions test our methods in hospitals, ICUs, pathology labs, skilled nursing facilities, and community practices. They expose the weaknesses of the status quo, showing what waste, error, inefficiencies, and substandard practices are doing to patient outcomes and worker satisfaction. They document how systems fail both workers and patients, and they show that it can be fixed. They show the value of redesigned work.

Working with physicians, nurses, pharmacists, emergency medical services personnel, medical assistants, community health workers, and managers across the spectrum of healthcare settings, PRHI helps prove the value of PPC in demonstrations targeting both clinical and operational problems.

 

Contact: Nancy Zionts
412-594-2559