Data and Measurement

are vital components of quality improvement in order to demonstrate that change has occured, or needs to occur and whether the change is an improvement.  Not all changes will be successful however they are still important to record in order to demonstrate the effect and learn from it.

In order to establish what data you need, it is essential first to understand what outcomes you are aiming to achieve as this will help determine your measures, and from that determine which measures will best demonstrate whether the changes make a difference Project Measures may include:

  • Reduction in admissions and re-admissions

  • Reduction in outpatient appointments

  • Patient Experience

  • Waiting days between interventions

  • Turn around times

  • Number of patients treated

  • Response time

 

After the project measures are agreed, you can then work on producing your Operational Definition.  This is a clear and concise definition of a measure and the steps to follow to measure it consistently to ensure that the exact same information is collected every time. 

 

 

 

Below is an example of a data collection plan.  These are used to simplify how you plan to collect and measure the data.