How can Healthcare Management professionals use feedback to identify areas of improvement?

Without being open and receptive to feedback we can not expect to improve. In the medical sector improvement equals improved patient care, which should always be at the canter of what we do.

In my experience, feedback matters...always - individuals should always strive to improve themself and the organization that they represent. It is particularly important in the healthcare sector when we are dealing with patients and potentially life and death situations/decisions. Feedback must be meaningful, accurate, and delivered in real-time. Individuals must also be open to learn from their successes (positive feedback) as well as their failures (constructive feedback).

There are several important reasons why feedback is essential for healthcare professionals. It drives sustainable progress, revealing key success and improvement factors. Constructive remarks help improve clinical skills, promote best practices, and ensure compliance with standards that lead to better care for patients. It also cultivates a culture of transparent communication and accountability, thereby creating an atmosphere of transparency. Feedback on a regular basis supports professional development, increases motivation and improves adaptation to continuously changing conditions in order to produce quality outputs for both workers who provide care and their recipients.

In my workspace, I have often experienced that what we think is better for our staff, stakeholders, and patients, need not be effective from their perspective! Hence, having a feedback system helps all the brains contributing to the organization come on one board, it allows room for both, improvement and collaborative brainstorming, which ultimately builds trust amongst peers and benefits the organization at large!

I believe in asking for advice rather than feedback. This is because "feedback" has a slightly negative starting point (What did I do wrong? What mistakes did I make?) while "advice" comes from a place of positive improvement (How can I do better? How can I improve?). I also suggest making it specific. Rather tha asking "How can I be better" I like to focus on specifics, usually related to a particular activity. For example, "How can I improve my presentation?" or "Was there anything missing from my report?" or "How can I communicate better as a manager for you?". This keeps the advice or feedback specific, actionable and focused on improvement rathern than what went wrong.

I personally see the biggest benefit in real-time feedback - such is the dynamic nature of healthcare. This feedback should come from the patients, as well as my fellow colleagues/direct reports. Annually, I would recommend the completion of a 360 review or similar - this quantitative and qualitative data gleamed can really help you evaluate your leadership style and ways by which you can improve.

Collection of an unbiased feedback is must for any process improvement or development. In my view deep focus on the feedback can leap an insight on logical, practical and robust process correction and improvement.

My two cents on this topic are as below : Feedback is one of the most important components which would be used to plan and implement quality improvement projects. Analyzing feedback and defining areas of concern is vital Doing a end to end process/workflow mapping against the feedback received and identifying metrics to monitor performance Identify brand champions to monitor and improve processes Revert to patients who have provided feedback and ask for specific details

Feedback collection can depend on the size of the organization and the diverse groups one is working with! I personally believe that in-person feedback from stakeholders and senior colleagues is more effective than having back-and-forth messaging with them! Also, the young professionals or staff which is larger in size can give feedback through an effective short survey!

The validity and reliability of the data is important to assess. Additionally, one should consider statistical significance especially in the setting of a small sample size (n)

Organize: Gather feedback from various sources and consolidate it into a centralized location for easy access. Categorize: Group similar feedback together based on common themes, topics, or pain points. Analyze: Identify recurring patterns, trends, and areas of dissatisfaction within the categorized feedback. Prioritize: Rank the identified areas for improvement based on their impact, feasibility, and urgency. Develop Action Plans: Create actionable plans to address the prioritized areas for improvement, assigning responsibilities and timelines. Monitor Progress: Regularly monitor the implementation of action plans and evaluate the effectiveness of the improvements made.

I believe Qualitative feedback is the most effective as it allows colleagues to put in their own opinions and experiences which would be missed on technical surveys! Hence, having key themes (issues) identified and then asking open-ended questions related to those themes can make the feedback specific and to the point of the theme! The professional can then easily segregate it according to the themes and identify the areas for improvement!

In my experience, the biggest issue here is not acknowledging/acting/implementing on it in a timely fashion. I believe in being open RE. the feedback that was received. This ties in with having good communication, trust and rapport.

Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from various sources, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation. Analyze Feedback: Organize, categorize, and analyze the feedback to identify common themes, patterns, and areas for improvement. Prioritize Areas: Rank the identified areas for improvement based on their impact, feasibility, and urgency. Develop Action Plans: Create actionable plans to address the prioritized areas for improvement, assigning responsibilities and timelines. Implement Actions: Implement the action plans, providing support and resources as needed. Monitor Progress: Regularly monitor the implementation of action plans and evaluate the effectiveness of the improvements made.

Once the feedback is analyzed, it is very important to set a time frame to act on the feedback and the time frame should be communicated with the organization! Acting on feedback promptly will help colleagues know that their feedback does hold importance and they will be more open to participating in discussions regarding improvement within the organization! The opposite can make them lose interest and they won't take providing feedback seriously!

Personal and professional development requires taking action when receiving feedback. Secondly, view feedback as a positive and helpful measure rather a negative thing. Feedback should be organized in order of significance, relevancy, and the possible effect that it may have. Come up with a definite course of action, targeting specific, attainable objectives. Address any identified areas for improvement by seeking guidance or training, where necessary. Evaluate progress and re-examine strategies periodically. Adopting a change oriented approach through the implementation of feedback in day-to-day activities, an ongoing learning attitude and greater efficiency.

Ask the person/people actually doing the job. Just watching/observing them does not give a complete picture of the task/job. Shadow them and then actually do the task/job for half of your day. Inspiring ideas on how to streamline the task maybe clarified while following any mandatory legal constraints.

We should continuously re-evaluate what, how and why we are collecting feedback. What has worked well for others? How can we be more thorough or implement a deep dive on a particular topic/area of specific need or interest?

Just collecting feedback for the sake of it doesn't bring in any meaningful change! Hence, feedback should be continuously re-evaluated to monitor what mode and type of feedback is helping the organization!

I see "feedback", advice and improvement as an ongoing cycle. I like to focus on specific areas for improvement that are actionable. This then allows me to put things in place to improve and then come back to the same question later on with the same person to see how things have changed. Essentially, it is the same approach we take to audits or quality improvement. Assess the baseline, put actions in place to improve, measure the improvement and carry on.