Elements of Improving Quality and Safety in Healthcare

Supply Chain Management

Sharon J. Williams

This Element explores the core characteristics of effective supply chain management and discusses the application of specific supply chain design and improvement approaches such as Lean and Agile.

Design Creativity

Gyuchan Thomas Jun, Sue Hignett, P. John Clarkson

This Element outlines the characteristics of design thinking, shares practical tools, and critiques the evidence for its application in healthcare improvement.

Values and Ethics

Alan Cribb, Vikki Entwistle, Polly Mitchell

This Element demonstrates the ethical considerations and values that underpin both the goals of healthcare improvement and how improvement work is undertaken.

Statistical Process Control

Mohammed Amin Mohammed

This Element describes statistical process control methodology, shares case studies to illustrate its application in healthcare, and provides critiques and reflections on its current use and future role in healthcare.

Approaches to Spread, Scale-Up and Sustainability

Chrysanthi Papoutsi, Trisha Greenhalgh, Sonja Marjanovic

Examines various approaches to spreading, scaling-up, and sustaining improvements in healthcare, noting their strengths and limitations. It shares case studies to highlight how different ways of viewing spread and scale-up can make a difference in practice.

Health Economics

Andrew Street, Nils Gutacker

Looks at economic approaches that can be used to encourage improvement in healthcare, and explores how economic evaluation can be used to compare the costs and benefits of using healthcare resources in alternative ways.

Governance and Leadership

Naomi Fulop, Angus Ramsey

Analyses evidence on how governance and leadership influence quality and safety in healthcare at different levels in the health system, and shows how different leadership approaches may contribute to delivering system change.

Simulation as an Improvement Technique

Victoria Brazil, Eve Purdy, Kamal Bajaj

Reviews the role of simulation as a rapidly emerging tool in improving quality and safety in healthcare, including its current use, potential applications, and challenges.

Reducing Overuse

Caroline Cupit, Carolyn Tarrant, Natalie Armstrong

Examines the successes, promising approaches and challenges in generating and using evidence about overuse, a major issue of healthcare quality, safety and sustainability.

Workplace Conditions

Jill Maben, Jane Ball, Amy C Edmondson

Reviews the evidence for the workplace conditions that are essential for improvement: the right number of staff and skills, psychological safety, and staff wellbeing.

Operational Research Approaches

Martin Utley, Sonya Crowe, Christina Pagel

Discover key concepts and common approaches in operational research and explore its potential to help analyse and improve healthcare services.

Making Culture Change Happen

Russell Mannion

Examines the evidence for linking organisational culture to healthcare quality and performance.

Implementation Science

Paul Wilson, Roman Kislov

Critically explores the theories and strategies of implementation science, and how they are or could be applied in practice.

The Positive Deviance Approach

Ruth Baxter, Rebecca Lawton

The potential of positive deviance is largely untapped. Discover how to identify those who demonstrate exceptional performance and investigate how they achieve it.

Co-Producing and Co-Designing

Glenn Robert, Louise Locock, Oli Williams, Jocelyn Cornwell, Sara Donetto, Joanna Goodrich

Examines the origins and development of co-production and co-design, their application in healthcare, and the opportunities and challenges.

Collaboration-Based Approaches

Graham Martin, Mary Dixon-Woods

Explores the evidence for collaboration-based approaches to improving healthcare, illustrated by examples and with guidance on the key challenges involved.