A joint analysis from the Health Foundation and Q…
Policymakers are right to prioritise improving health care productivity. Yet if such efforts are seen as primarily finance driven, or a means of doing more with less, they are unlikely to succeed. For productivity improvement to be seen as a worthy goal in the eyes of staff and patients, a new narrative is needed that frames it as a path to boosting or maintaining care quality.
Improvement leaders and practitioners have a crucial role to play in driving productivity and quality-related improvements. Their experience engaging people, building coalitions and delivering sustained change across complex organisations and systems using improvement approaches makes them ideally placed to lead and support this work.
This analysis sets out five key actions policymakers and organisation, system and improvement leaders need to take to develop and implement a more holistic, quality-focused approach to productivity.
The new productivity narrative must be shaped and driven by extensive engagement with stakeholders at every level of the health care system. Greater awareness must also be built of the interconnected infrastructural, cultural and capability-related factors required to deliver change. Next, opportunities for meaningful collaboration need to be pursued in areas where improvement approaches offer particular promise, such as improving flow, tackling failure demand and implementing technology. Finally, there must be a focus on ensuring improvement and the principles underpinning it are sustained over time.
