A Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) program is a regulatory requirement, but more importantly, it is essential for safe patient care, quality outcomes and extraordinary patient experience. Intermountain Health (Intermountain) initially implemented a standardized system QAPI program in 2019 which includes a standardized QAPI Plan, Tracking Tool and Performance Report. This approach achieves enterprise-level KPI alignment throughout the 33-hospital system and its homecare division, to the point of care. Recent enhancements to the tracking tool include pre-loaded best practices to frontline teams for quality, safety, experience and equity indicators which align to system initiatives and drive performance.
Tool: FMEA
Problem: Current QAPI program lacked a standardized process and reporting to the board, this is essential to identify gaps in care in Safety, Quality and Experience
Tool Selection: FMEA identifies gaps as well as opportunities which can be studied for improvement prior to a catastrophic event occurs, basically proactively addressing concerns before they reach the patient or caregiver
Usage: After an organizational restructure, a lack of standardization was observed. A flowchart of all of the various hospitals QAPI programs was created, identifying multiple ways the process could breakdown
Results: Intermountain Health has created a standardized QAPI program, which includes a reporting mechanism for providing data to the governing board for evaluation of identified QAPI metrics, allowing the board to hold leaders accountable or provide additional resources if needed. No survey findings since the 2019 implementation of the QAPI program
