Before the team begins to build the “what really happens” current state map, it is really helpful and critical to go and walk the walk. This is known as a GEMBA walk. We have designed system and patient tracing tools that your team can retrieve from the J.C.R. HEN D.M.S. toolkit section and can use as your team walks the walk. We recommend that you schedule a 2 hour block of time to cover any one of the given processes, assuring that you begin the walk where the patient enters the system and complete the walk at the transition point to release from the hospital. Be sure to capture where the patient comes from (all entry points) and where they are being released to (all receiving organizations). By capturing where you patients come from and where they are released to…an accurate list of key stakeholders can be created – this will represent the many key team members that you may wish to call upon or have on your performance improvement team. Involving community resources such as home health and skilled nursing or rehab units can be invaluable to the working knowledge for the team as they will highlight risk points that the internal team may be unaware of.
This introductory module provided background information on the national Partnership for Patients campaign, Joint Commission Resources’s Hospital Engagement Network and model for helping you improve, and a recommended hospital project infrastructure. Your team is now ready to begin the modules specific to the selected adverse event!