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IHI Quality Tool Usage in Poster Presentations

QI Macros exhibited at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) conference in Orlando this week. There were over 500 improvement posters. Like prior years, I used a checksheet to collect data about the tools used. Once again, the results are disappointing. Quality tools–control charts, Pareto charts, and Fishbone diagrams–are still a small percentage of tools used, unchanged since I started collecting data in 2015. Bar and line charts still dominate posters; I call them Dumb and Dumber charts.

The quest for Zero Harm using high-reliability methods and tools (i.e., Lean Six Sigma, control charts, Pareto charts, histograms, etc.) is gaining momentum.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Six Sigma.

IHI 2017 Quality Tool Usage

Most of the improvement posters at this year’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) conference are still using line, bar and pie charts, not the tools of quality improvement. There were several posters using QI Macros control charts, Pareto charts and fishbones this year from Sutter Health and Howard University Hospital.

Posted by Jay Arthur in QI Macros, Six Sigma.

IHI 2015 Poster Use of Quality Tools

In his speech Sunday at IHI, Don Berwick called for everyone to “recommit to improvement science” (step 5 in ERA 3 of healthcare transformation).

He sounded annoyed with the lack of use of Lean Six Sigma tools and methodologies.

I understand his frustration. I was there in 2006 when he asked everyone to “pledge allegiance to science and evidence.”

Over the years, I’ve done a stroke tally of the quality tools used in IHI poster presentations.

I gave each poster one checkmark for each type of tool used.

IHI-2015-poster-use-of-tools

Sadly, even with all of the emphasis on control charts, Pareto charts and other tools of quality, they are used rarely in poster presentations.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, QI Macros, Six Sigma.