Designing for Sustainment: Keeping Improvement Work on Track (Patient Safety IV)

In this module, learners will develop an understanding of what project sustainment is and why it is important, the potential risks to project sustainment, the importance of planning for sustainment from project inception, types of measures used in quality improvement projects and the attributes of each, how strategies for improvement were developed in two successful large-scale quality improvement initiatives. Learners will become familiar with the issues impacting sustainment and how they may be successfully addressed across the life span of a quality improvement project.

In this module, learners will develop an understanding of what the Pre-Mortem exercise is and how it can be used to: improve project planning, surface threats to project success and sustainment, develop interventions to mitigate risk of project failure, create an action plan to maximize the application of Pre-Mortem results, and maintain awareness of threats to project success across the project lifespan. Learners will also develop familiarity with facilitation best-practices. The Pre-Mortem Exercise can be a powerful tool to identify and mitigate risks for project failure.

In this module, learners will develop an understanding of: what is meant by change management, reasons for change initiative failure, change as a process, frameworks and processes for change, the differences between technical and adaptive work and the role of each in a change effort, leadership skills necessary for addressing adaptive change, identifying and engaging change effort stakeholders, managing conflict, developing a communication strategy for a change effort, applying a systems approach to change efforts.