The Live Music Capitol of the World – Austin, Texas – has a different buzz downtown today. The convention center is filled with Texas’ volunteer and career emergency medical services caregivers. Held annually, the Texas EMS Conference rivals many national EMS conference events and draws industry leading faculty from across the country and caregivers from across the state.
Ernie Rodriquez, Director of EMS for Austin/Travis County EMS, has been a leader in advancing professional development for EMS leaders in the State. This year, he is joined by EMS leaders who strive to push EMS operations to the next level in a dedicated administration track. Dr. Dave Williams was invited to introduce the Model for Improvement – used throughout health care for process improvement – and share his experiences using the model with organizations across North America and Europe. The conference is always a great event and we welcome the opportunity to contribute.
American Medical Responses (AMR) is the largest private ambulance service in North America. Responding to more than 8,600 requests for service per day and with a staff of 17,000, AMR serves 2,100 communities in 38 states. It is also one of the first organizations Dr. Williams worked with as a paramedic back in Springfield, MA.
AMR sees more patients than any other pre-hospital care and transportation organization in North America. The organization’s leadership has committed strongly to improving clinical quality. They aspire to develop needed improvement skills and strive to achieve the results witnessed throughout health care.
As part of this pursuit, AMR is embarking on an improvement journey modeled after the IHI Breakthrough Series Improvement Collaborative Model used around the world and throughout health care. More than a dozen operations, from across North America, will test changes in two work streams, including sudden cardiac arrest and portfolio of clinical areas. The sudden cardiac arrest work is part of the the HeartRescue initiative sponsored by the Medtronic Foundation and the portfolio of clinical areas is directly connected with AMR Clinical’s strategic plan. This is the first patient care improvement collaborative in this segment of health care or public safety.
Dr. Williams is pleased to support AMR’s work as improvement advisors coaching on testing and measurement.
More than a 100 people convened in Austin, TX at the Austin Convention Center for Wave 2011. Sponsored by ESO Solutions, a technology company developing solutions for emergency medical services organizations, Wave 2011 is a 2-day conference produced for its clients. It brings industry leaders and ESO’s deep pool of talented staff together to provide timely and pragmatic sessions on using patient data to improve care.
Dr. Dave Williams has had the pleasure of presenting at several of ESO Solutions’ national and regional education venues. ESO Solutions’ CEO – Chris Dillie – was Dr. Williams’s paramedic partner when they worked together at Austin EMS.
Today, he presented a session on using data for improvement and learning. With so much data, it’s easy for people to struggle with were to begin. Dr. Williams focused on identifying important metrics and measuring data over time to understand process variation and improvement. The audience included many innovative, local people striving to improve the reliability and quality of care in their communities. It’s always rewarding to see people really interested in improvement and change.
For the last few weeks, I have been testing an experiential exercise to quickly train large groups to use rapid cycle, small tests of change (i.e., PDSA cycles). The exercise involves teams learning through testing how to assemble a toy Mr. Potato Head. I modified the exercise after working with with Dr. Eric Dickson on the faculty for the Instituite for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Impacting Cost & Quality collaborative. Dr. Dickson is the Senior Associate Dean and President, University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Group in Worcester, Massachusetts. He uses Mr. Potato Head to teach emergency physicians and medical students about lean principles. You can read a description of a session he did for the American College of Emergency Physicians here.
The modified exercise I am testing includes teams developing theories, making predictions, carrying out tests, and measuring results on run charts. In addition, participants learn how to share knowledge across teams and harness the power of the collaborative learning process. I’ve now tested the exercise half a dozen times in public safety, health care, and education audiences and each session has improved upon the last. And, I have received lots of positive feedback from participants. IHI even bought seven Mr. Potato Heads for the home office for use in the Patient Safety Officer Course and to teach internal staff about PDSA testing.
While the use of a toy produces an element of fun, this exercise, more than many I have used, really enables participants to discover the power of making predictions, using small PDSAs to test theories, and tracking data in real time using time series charts. It’s amazing how sometimes small experiential learning exercises can really connect people with the concepts and facilitate applying them to their improvement work.
Oct 11
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Halloween Spirit
Being a household with small kids, this weekend has been filled with Halloween events. Nate’s preschool had its annual party, which is great for the little ones and Ella’s elementary school produced another fantastic Highland Park Elementary HOOT Carnival. The HOOT is produced by the PTA and raised $40,000 last year for the school. This weekend also involved some pumpkin carving, which is always a yucky, but necessary family activity.
On CNN’s State of The Union, Candy Crowely interviewed Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation for a brief discussion about the economics of Halloween. You can watch the full interview here. In down economies, consumer spending around holidays – like Christmas – goes down, indicating that people are cutting back. The opposite is true about Halloween, where consumers actually show an increase in spending during down years. Ms. Davis hypothesized this is true because it’s a brief holiday, that’s not tied to any religion or person, it’s accessible to all socio-economic classes, and, probably most importantly, it allows us an opportunity to take a break and have fun.
Have a safe and enjoyable Halloween. Trick or Treat!