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The Synergy Tool: Making Important Quality Gains within One Healthcare Organization Ho, Enoch; Principi, Elaine; Cordon, Charissa P.; Amenudzie, Yayra; Kotwa, Krista; Holt, Sarah; MacPhee, Maura
Abstract
Background: Evidence-based clinical care delivery begins with comprehensive assessments of patients’ priority needs. A Canadian health sciences corporation conducted a quality improvement initiative to enhance clinical care delivery, beginning with one acute care site. A real-time staffing tool, the synergy tool, was used by direct care providers and leadership to design and implement patient-centered care delivery. The synergy tool is the patient characteristics component of the Synergy Model™, developed by an expert panel of nurses in the 1990s. Since then, the tool has been effectively used to assess a variety of patient populations on eight important characteristics, informing real-time staffing decisions. Methods: Plan-Do-Study Act cycles were managed by department-based project teams with assistance from business analytics and a quality/safety officer. Results: Initial findings demonstrate reductions in nurse missed breaks, improved workload management, and significant increases in staff engagement. Conclusions: The synergy tool is an easy-to-use tool that can be used to highlight priority care needs for individual patients or specific patient populations. The tool informs real-time staffing decisions, ensuring a better fit between patient needs and nurse staffing assignments. Although this initiative began with nurses, project work is expanding to include inter-professional teams.
Item Metadata
| Title |
The Synergy Tool: Making Important Quality Gains within One Healthcare Organization
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| Creator | |
| Publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
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| Date Issued |
2017-09-07
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| Description |
Background: Evidence-based clinical care delivery begins with comprehensive assessments of patients’ priority needs. A Canadian health sciences corporation conducted a quality improvement initiative to enhance clinical care delivery, beginning with one acute care site. A real-time staffing tool, the synergy tool, was used by direct care providers and leadership to design and implement patient-centered care delivery. The synergy tool is the patient characteristics component of the Synergy Model™, developed by an expert panel of nurses in the 1990s. Since then, the tool has been effectively used to assess a variety of patient populations on eight important characteristics, informing real-time staffing decisions. Methods: Plan-Do-Study Act cycles were managed by department-based project teams with assistance from business analytics and a quality/safety officer. Results: Initial findings demonstrate reductions in nurse missed breaks, improved workload management, and significant increases in staff engagement. Conclusions: The synergy tool is an easy-to-use tool that can be used to highlight priority care needs for individual patients or specific patient populations. The tool informs real-time staffing decisions, ensuring a better fit between patient needs and nurse staffing assignments. Although this initiative began with nurses, project work is expanding to include inter-professional teams.
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| Subject | |
| Genre | |
| Type | |
| Language |
eng
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| Date Available |
2019-06-24
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| Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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| Rights |
CC BY 4.0
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| DOI |
10.14288/1.0379546
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| URI | |
| Affiliation | |
| Citation |
Administrative Sciences 7 (3): 32 (2017)
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| Publisher DOI |
10.3390/admsci7030032
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| Peer Review Status |
Reviewed
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| Scholarly Level |
Faculty
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| Rights URI | |
| Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
CC BY 4.0