Obstacles affecting A&F in the health system | Fouth online meeting | November 25th | Time: 3:30-5.15 (CET)
15.40 – Noah Ivers, University of Toronto
Obstacles affecting A&F in the health system
Understanding how well a clinician, or health care team is performing provides an essential foundation for improvement. When done well, audit and feedback (A&F) provides data in a non-judgemental, motivating fashion and leads to changes in clinical processes that benefit patients. This talk will explore obstacles to optimizing the potential positive effects of A&F to improve patient care and outcomes by examining three inter-related steps in the process: the audit; the feedback; and the action. The audit requires data that will be perceived as both valid and actionable. Acquiring and using such data properly often requires partnerships. The recipients must also know how to turn the data into action. The A&F should include components that direct the recipient toward feasible next steps. Such actions can be personal (learning new diagnostic or treatment strategies, trying harder on a patient-by-patient basis), or organizational (more proactive approaches that often feature additional team members). The ability to turn feedback into action will depend on the culture of the recipient-group and their QI-literacy. Feedback facilitation or coaching may be needed for certain groups or certain kinds or desired changes in practice. Inadequate leadership and support for health professionals as they try to respond to A&F is, therefore, another key obstacle.
Key readings
There are many papers relevant to this brief talk, some of them are highlighted here: