Analysis of National Value Improvement Collaborative (NVIC) Projects

This report provides an overview of the National Value Improvement Collaborative (NVIC) projects implemented at the Communicable Disease Center (CDC) within Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) in Qatar. The report begins with a brief introduction to the NVIC, which aims to enhance healthcare qu...Read More

Running head: NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Brief of NVIC
The National patient safety Collaborative has been revised as the National Value
Improvement Collaborative. The aim of this initiative is to improve the quality and the value of
care by value improvement approach. This approach includes the implementation of clinical
approaches associated with sepsis and venous thromboembolism. This partnership will be carried
out by HHQI with the strategic guidance from the Institute of health care improvement in service
of the improved outcomes and improved value of care across the HMC.
The Institute of health care improvement value management methodology was introduced
in the years 2017, which brought together three important concepts. These are – Visual
management, Data (Box score) and communication method (Institute for Healthcare
Improvement, 2019). This had been done for understanding the quality, cost and the capacity of
the workforce in a simplified way b maximizing the capability and the leadership quality of the
workers. Another important aim of this collaborative is to assess the resources that is present in
the system and which works for ensuring that a defined strategic direction is defined, having a
strong focus on optimizing the effectiveness, value and efficiency.
Linkage chart
Linkage charts can be formed by the use of project tracking software generating graphs
on the dashboard as it acts as the fastest way of viewing and sharing a heath care projects .
Analysis of the charts assess the resources that are required, planning the order by which the task

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has to be completed. It is also helpful in managing ant dependencies between the tasks. These
types of charts are primarily used in the health care projects.
Box score (Data)
The front line health care leaders needs some way out to bring together financial and
clinical data such that financial values can be addressed alongside the clinical quality of the
health care organization. Box score can be considered to be one of the component of lean
accounting that helps to bring together both the financial as well as the clinical data. Box score
helps in measuring the quality of the health care including the safety and the flaws in the
healthcare quality. Box score helps in measuring the capacity, such as it helps to compare the
overall availability of entire staffs to the actual productive usage of the staff time. It also helps in
measuring the finance of the organization, such as it addresses the major cost items and the
traditional ways for measuring the profitability. For instance, the Box score also includes the
‘hurdle rate”, that is the minimum ate of the profitability that is acceptable.
Huddles
Huddle can be defied as an action of a team gathering in a tight circle for planning and
strategizing a plan. It is normally a catch up meetings where all the team members gather to
share their perceptions, the daily schedules, the to-do’s areas and the gaps left that needs to be
addressed. As per the current researches, ineffective communication among the health care
professionals are one of the main case of patient harm and medical errors. Hence huddles has
been found to be effective for preparing the staffs for the shift, face to face interaction,
immediate response to the questions , streamlined resolution of the difficulties, effective

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dissemination of the information, improving the teamwork and effective communication between
the health team members. Huddles has been found to be enhancing team work and sense of
cohesion between the staffs.
Necessity of frequent meeting of the huddles
A huddle is usually a short meetings of 10 minutes or less than that , which is typically
used at the beginning of each day in a clinical setting. In a clinical setting huddle generally takes
place one in a day. Primary care staffs can take huddles in before the starting of the shift for
discussing the patient to be cared off as a team.
Frequent huddles in health care settings have been found to be useful for maintaining the
quality and safety as it can permit the reviewing of the important standard of work like the
checklists. A huddle provides venue for ensuring the compliance of the improvement process. It
also enables the team to look back and review the performances and look ahead to the red flags
of concern proactively.
NVIC projects
Performance
Poor performance of the health care workers can be a result of the shortage of the health
care staffs, or not providing health care services as per the standard and not being responsive to
the grievances and the needs of the community. There are several factors that guide the retention
of the staffs in a health care organization like the personal and the life style factors including the
living circumstances, the work related factors like the policy planning as well as the human

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resources. The project also aims to enhance the competency of the health care workers by
providing them with proper training.
Cost: Outpatient Parental Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT)
One of the important aim of this project is focus on the development of services for the
administration of intravenous antibiotics without an overnight stay in patients residing in the
community. The provision or the infrastructure needs to be such that patients can be managed
easily without any hospitalization (Barr and Seaton 2013). The NVIC projects ensure that there
is a continuous improvement of this process including the delineation of the clinical
responsibilities. The OPAT team needs to be competent enough for agreeing for an infection
specific inclusion and exclusion criteria for each of the patients.
Safety
The main aim of this project is to ensure the safety of the patients, which includes issues
about hygiene, the hand off communications, hospital acquired pressure injuries, prevention of
falls and use of antibiotics. Separate committees were set to manage various safety aspects. The
team members also help in the formulation of the policies and to check whether the policies are
being executed effectively (Dingley et al. 2018). The members also ensure to evaluate the
feedback given for the implemented policies are being reviewed seriously and appropriate steps
are being taken. It is ensured that the organizations work in compliance with the national
standards (Xie and Carayon 2015).
Capacity
The implementation of the project would require the health care sector to make
investment in the new strategic priorities and new methods of working. Human resources needs

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to be increased for supporting the critical management of the change. It is ensured by the team
members that the resources that is available in the system are utilized properly. It also ensured
that problems related to shortage of staffing are addressed. The capacity and the competency of
the nurses needs to be increased. Some of the examples of initiatives includes competency of the
nurses in video directly observed (VDOT) for the monitoring of the tuberculosis. In this process
a trusted health care workers watch patients to swallow medicines. It reduces personnel as well
as the cost of the travel (Garfein et al. 2018).
Joy at work
In order to retain the nurses, in the health care setting, it is necessary that the health care
workers get job satisfaction within a particular organization. The health care workers often
experience work related stress and burnout due to patient load. Job related stress has been found
to be negatively associated with the clinical errors (Kumar et al. 2017). It is necessary for an
organization that the rights of the health care workers are reserved and appropriate staffing is
maintained to reduce the workload. Incentives and positive reinforcements can sometimes act as
motivating factors.

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References
Barr, D. A., and Seaton, R. A. 2013. Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) and the
general physician. Clinical medicine (London, England), 13(5), 495–499.
Dingley, C., Daugherty, K., Derieg, M.K. and Persing, R., 2018. Improving patient safety
through provider communication strategy enhancements. In Advances in patient safety: new
directions and alternative approaches (Vol. 3: Performance and tools). Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (US).
Garfein, R.S., Liu, L., Cuevas-Mota, J., Collins, K., Muñoz, F., Catanzaro, D.G., Moser, K.,
Higashi, J., Al-Samarrai, T., Kriner, P. and Vaishampayan, J., 2018. Tuberculosis treatment
monitoring by video directly observed therapy in 5 health districts, California, USA. Emerging
infectious diseases, 24(10), p.1806.
Institute for Healthcare Improvement, (2019). Qatar Value Improvement Program. Access date:
2.1.2020. Retrieved from:https://www.hamad.qa/EN/All-Events/MEFQSH2019/Access
%20Presentation/Saturday/National%20Session/VIP-MEF%20National%20Session%20-
%20Nasser%20fINAL.pdf
Kumar, R., Ahmed, J., Shaikh, B.T., Hafeez, R. and Hafeez, A., 2013. Job satisfaction among
public health professionals working in public sector: a cross sectional study from Pakistan.
Human resources for health, 11(1), p.2.

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Xie, A. and Carayon, P., 2015. A systematic review of human factors and ergonomics (HFE)-
based healthcare system redesign for quality of care and patient safety. Ergonomics, 58(1),
pp.33-49.