So far, we’ve only been looking at metrics that are really big and important. This is certainly a good place to start. To move beyond this, I’d like to introduce the concept of Outcome vs Process Metrics. Outcome Metrics are the big, huge metrics we really care about. The problem is they’re really hard to impact. Process Metrics are things that aren’t intrinsically important, but are important because they drive Outcome Metrics. We’ve been working quite a bit over the last year or two on adding in more Process Metrics to our dashboards. This helps staff feel more empowered to make meaningful change, which leads to improvement. For Hospital-acquired Infections (HAI), the main Process Metrics are Hand Hygiene (i.e. hand washing) and CHG (a chemical treatment that kills bacteria). By adding these to a dashboard with Infection Rate and SIR for the main HAI types, we get a very functional operational dashboard.

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