Send the Message: Communications for healthcare improvement and why you should be thinking about it.
Today at the IHI International Forum in Amsterdam, a rather exciting thing that I’ve had to keep quiet about for a little while is going to happen; the #QIComms Charter is going to be launched.
Built by a lot of big names in healthcare improvement, this is the “strategic communications part of quality and safety improvement that builds the will and momentum for achieving improvement goals”, which sounds pretty darn impressive. Put it in a nutshell: before diving in to your improvement initiative, take pause and think about your message and how you’re going to use it to excite people.
Why is this important? Well, if there’s one thing about QI that you learn quite quickly, it’s that that getting people to change their behaviour is difficult. It’s often easy to come up with a new process, or to spot where a system is going wrong. It’s generally possible to think of several solutions you could try and to pick something practical to address as your first target for intervention. Where it all goes wrong is getting the end users to adopt the new thing, because they really don’t see the point of it.
Working in the dark doesn’t help. It has always been a bit of a puzzle to me why, once a month certain departments down tools for a day, wander off to a dark, grotty seminar rooms and have AUDIT DAY, where various bugbears are brought out, weighed, there is a general agreement that “we must do better”… but how many of these sessions end in action points that are communicated to the relevant staff appropriately and without apportioning blame?
On the other hand, if you make your aim clear, build some excitement in a way that’s relevant to your audience and then bring that message home, some amazing things can happen.
Think about the #hellomynameis campaign. This got it spectacularly right, pitched perfectly at both the professional and the patient groups. We all immediately understood the clear message and the simple aim. Patients made a massive contribution by sharing their experiences of meeting ten different people in a visit and not knowing any of their names and how dehumanising that felt. Stories were told, experience shared and pretty soon, conscious change became habit.
Building a communications strategy isn’t easy; happily there’s also a 6 step process that you can follow to help you think about how you might do it, which comes in a jaunty video format for all your viewing needs. Alternatively, here’s a mugshot of yours truly having produced similar on a flipchart…
To finish with a challenge: think about the improvement initiatives you are either involved in or are thinking about launching and as yourself what message you are sending. If it’s not loud and clear, start refining. If it is, then let us know about it and start spreading the word.
You can get your organisation to sign up to the #QIComms Charter here; all snapshots of people smiling with signed charters greatly received! Share your goings-on on twitter with #QIComms
I am not officially involved in the #QIComms Charter, but I happen to think it’s a blooming good idea and am delighted to offer my support to the initiative.