CAPABILITY BUILDING

All Children Thrive knows that achieving big changes for children in our community will require all of us working together with a focus on testing interventions and monitoring the results.  Cincinnati Children’s shares its experience and expertise in using a quality improvement framework with our community partners through collaboration, coaching, and education programs.

Community partners are invited to participate in courses to learn more about this approach – several described below.  These courses, offered in partnership with the James M. Anderson Center’s Leadership Academy, support our community partners to become powerful change agents and imagine more effective ways of practicing medicine, providing community services, and improving outcomes.

ImpactU

ImpactU is a six-month, hands-on course designed to provide community leaders with an in-depth understanding of improvement science and build a broader community of improvement leaders. The course, created by Cincinnati Children’s and facilitated by the Anderson Center's Leadership Academy, leverages custom-tailored curriculum we have used for over 15 years to develop hundreds of improvement leaders.

ImpactU is offered by invitation once per year to key partners in the community who are committed to leading improvements to achieve desired outcomes. Participants apply and build on learned skills by leading a team with a real-life project to drive quality improvement in their system. Projects are aligned with an organizational goal as well as a shared community goal described by All Children Thrive:

  • Excellent and equitable health outcomes – Ensure delivery of equitable care and strengthen health-related wraparound supports to achieve excellent outcomes for children and families

  • Safe and supported families – Activate and integrate family voice in the community, prevent and mitigate adversities to families in our community, and improve access to evidence-based trauma prevention and intervention

  • Path to full potential - Optimize each child’s development and learning across their life trajectory

Lean Collaborative

The Lean Collaborative is an eight-week, hands-on, team-based course designed to deepen participants’ ability to solve problems and improve operational performance. The course, created by Cincinnati Children’s and facilitated by the Anderson Center's Leadership Academy, is based on the lean tools and methods utilized in the Toyota Production System (TPS) and top performing healthcare organizations to identify non-value added work and lead improvements in safety, quality, productivity, lead time, cost effectiveness, and staff burden.

The Lean Collaborative is offered quarterly to Cincinnati Children’s employees and invited key partners in the community who are committed to driving change that eliminates non-value added work and improves customer satisfaction. Attendees include top management, middle managers, frontline staff and leaders in clinical and/or administrative areas. See an example course plan here.

Participants learn the history and philosophy of lean and how to adopt the tools/methods in their setting. They will use a combination of classroom exercises and a team-based project to demonstrate a basic understanding of:

  • Process observation and identification of non-value added work

  • Visualization of material, people, and information flow in a value stream map

  • Standardization, work measurement and “5S” activities

  • Problem solving and PDSA improvement cycles

  • Project summarization using A3 (1-page) reporting