Improvement tools by type of task

Here you can find the quality, service improvement and redesign (QSIR) tools that will help you deliver your project aligned to the type of task you may be currently focused upon e.g. supporting people through change or identifying problems:

Leading improvement
Project management
Identifying problems
Stakeholder and involvement
Mapping the process
Measurement for improvement
Demand and capacity management
Thinking creatively
Supporting people through change

Leading improvement

Use these tools, models and frameworks to help you, as a leader of improvement, to create a shared vision and to manage the challenges of developing a supportive culture and engaging others in improvement:

Project management

Project management and its associated tools and methods should be uppermost in your thoughts from the initiation to the completion of a project:

Identifying problems

Use these tools to understand and gain insight into the causes of your problem before making changes based on assumptions. Using these sorts of tools ensures your approach is factual or evidence based:

Stakeholder and involvement

These tools can help you understand who the key stakeholders of your service improvement initiative are and how to engage these groups. By involving them and understanding and acting on their perspectives you will help to ensure that the changes are sustainable and will produce the best outcomes.

Mapping the process

Process mapping enables you to create a visual picture of how the pathway currently works, capturing the reality of the process, exposing areas of duplication, waste, unhelpful variation and unnecessary steps. These tools help to build good working relationships within a team and across functional and organisational boundaries – with everyone focused on making improvements that will have the biggest impact for patients and staff.

Measure for improvement

These tools and methods help organisations, teams and individuals understand the importance of measurement for improvement and will help you to use data to identify areas for improvement and to know when the change you have made is an improvement. They are particularly useful in ensuring you make consistent decisions when working with teams as those decisions will be based on fact, rather than assumptions:

Demand and capacity management

The tools and methods will enable you to better understand and manage demand and capacity in whatever healthcare environment you operate, and so improve flow and decrease waiting times.

Thinking creatively

These tools are tried and tested ways of coming up with new solutions and perspectives to an issue, problem or improvement opportunity.

Supporting people through change

The following approaches and tools are designed to help you understand some aspects of change (e.g. the emotional and creative tensions within people) and help you manage successful transition and service improvement efforts.