Measuring success

Continuously monitor progress and improve with experience.

Why is this important?

Teams need to see that the changes they are asked to implement are having the desired effect. Selecting a set of one or more measures to track over time, and providing that information to the entire clinic team at the local level is crucial to improving and sustaining the work. Examples might include process measures like proportion of patients with a signed updated patient agreement, or more distal outcomes, such as proportion of patients on high-dose opioids. Set a goal for improvement over a reasonable time period, and provide clinicians and staff with frequent updates on progress.

XYZ Clinic set a goal that “no more than 10% of COT patients have an MED of 90 or above.” The clinic tracked this quarterly and gave a list of patients with an MED of 90 or more to providers to review and confirm that those patients had a tapering plan.

Example activities

  • Develop consensus on measures of success and define how they will be measured
  • Regularly review measures of success data at the clinician level

 
 
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