Value of Using a Structured Improvement Approach: A Dedicated Education Unit Exemplar

Abstract

Using a structured approach to improvement that integrates methodological frameworks and commonly used improvement tools and techniques allows an improvement team to systematically implement and evaluate an intervention. Authors from one academic medical center will describe our four-step structured improvement approach in the design of a dedicated education unit (DEU) pilot to potentially meet a critical post-COVID-19 workforce need. Using our structured improvement approach, we successfully piloted a DEU with a unit-based clinical educator and 16 nursing students over 26 clinical days and received 13 preintervention surveys from participants. Although the DEU pilot was small with limited data, the structured improvement approach resulted in an organized and systematic way of designing, implementing, and evaluating improvement.