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Table 3 Quality improvement (process) measures

From: SCOPE: Safer care for older persons (in residential) environments: A study protocol

Concept

Definition

Items

Reliability and Validity

Organizational readiness for change1,2

Facility readiness to participate in the SCOPE study.

Five items: leader support, aim and population, team membership, availability of measures, and prior experience.

Teams are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 for each question and given an overall rating indicating perceived likelihood of success in the Collaborative.

Validated tool from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).

Barriers to making a change on the unit

Perceived barriers or hindrances to making a change on the SCOPE study unit.

Six items for QI teams to complete using Yes/No responses.

Five items for Senior Sponsors to complete using Yes/No responses.

Measures developed by the research team and pilot tested for face validity.

Work group cohesion3,4

'The degree to which an individual believes that the members of his or her work group are attracted to each other, willing to work together, and committed to the completion of the tasks and goals of the work group'p.312

Eight items on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

The original scale has demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach α = 0.92)

Work group communication3,4

'The degree to which information is transmitted among the members of the work group'p.312

Four items on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

The original scale has shown acceptable reliability (Cronbach α = 0.79)

Inter-team relationships1,3

Working relationships between the QI teams from participating facilities working on this study.

One item

The rating scale ranges from 1 to 4, where

1 = no inter-team relationships

2 = starting slowly

3 = getting there

4 = strong inter-team relationships.

Validated tool from the IHI.

Team progress towards improvement goal1,3

Team assessment of progress in achieving their aims based on group consensus.

The rating scale ranges from 1 to 6, where

1 = team formed

2 = activity but no testing

3 = changes tested but no improvement

4 = changes tested some improvement

5 = significant improvement

6 = outstanding sustainable results.

Validated tool from the IHI.

Satisfaction with the intervention5

Satisfaction with participating in the QI intervention

Thirteen items

To be pilot tested during the SCOPE study.

  1. 1 Adapted from Institute for Healthcare Improvement Breakthrough Series Collaborative [33] and Improvement Associates Ltd.
  2. 2 http://www.improvingchroniccare.org/downloads/callgrid.doc [41]
  3. 3 Completed by QI teams using a monthly tracking form
  4. 4 See reference list [40].
  5. 5 Adapted from Improvement Associates Ltd.