Using Improvement Science to Address Cross-Program Communication

The Boston Public Health Commission consists of six disease-specific bureaus supported by several administrative offices. The program performing this QI initiative offers specific youth development and health services programming over the non-academic summer months. Leading into the 2016 summer session, several staff members were concerned by the communication challenges that exist across these six programs during the busiest months. Although leaders from each program would meet monthly to share cross-program updates and issues, the leaders did not communicate this information across the programs consistently, which affected staff and programs.  

A four-person team of directors and program staff participated in a 2-day basic QI training to learn and apply QI tools to address this problem. The team then engaged in a series of PDSA cycles to test solutions. The effectiveness of the solutions was measured by staff satisfaction with communication flow. The team also measured staff knowledge of the communicated points and the source of the information to monitor effectiveness of solutions to improve communication from leadership.

Over 6 months, the team’s satisfaction remained approximately the same (on a scale of 1–5); however, the percentage of staff members who knew communicated points compared with the baseline increased by 25%.