Quality Improvement Boot Camp teaches participants the value of collaboration to advance patient care
How do you cut clinic wait times in half or significantly reduce the number of patient falls in the hospital? These questions are often top of mind for health care professionals focused on exceeding ever-higher goals for quality improvement.
In June, UT Southwestern interdisciplinary teams discovered the power of putting their collective knowledge together to solve hypothetical health care problems such as these, taking on the challenge of big issues with enthusiasm. Thirteen UTSW medical students, most of whom are pursuing a medical degree with Distinction in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, collaborated with five engineering students from UT Arlington and 14 nurses from William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital during the Quality Improvement (QI) Boot Camp program.
The QI Boot Camp class taught problem-solving skills and emphasized the importance of teamwork, said Smrithi Upadhyayula, a UTSW medical school student on track to graduate in 2027.
“Working with people from different backgrounds is a good simulation of the working environment in health care and allowed us to intentionally practice the team-building skills that we are being taught,” she said.
Annually since 2015, the boot camp has offered participants an opportunity to learn how to run a QI project using methodologies and tools used in health care, said Eleanor Phelps, UTSW Director of Quality, Safety, and Outcomes Education.
“Students get a well-rounded week with many presentations of different topics.” Ms. Phelps said. “They learn tools that are applicable to any specialty.”
Participants not only attended lectures on a wide variety of subjects, but they also participated in activities that helped them learn new ways of solving problems, said William Gary Reed, M.D., Associate Dean of Quality, Safety, and Outcomes Education at UTSW. One such activity involved using a catapult to shoot pingpong balls at a target. The exercise taught participants how to make something work better, said Dr. Reed, who is also a Professor of Internal Medicine. The teams made decisions to affect the accuracy of hitting the target. This taught teamwork, the use of a control chart, and the risk of over- or under-monitoring the output of a process, he said.
Marco Pataray, RN, Assistant Nurse Manager at Clements University Hospital, said the boot camp gave him a fundamental understanding of the methodologies and tools used in quality improvement projects.
“The diverse mix of medical students, nurses, and systems engineers made the experience enjoyable as we mutually learned from each other,” Mr. Pataray said. “The hands-on activities were engaging and challenged us to put the concepts we learned into practice, thus improving our critical thinking skills.”
At the end of the week, participants gave presentations on theoretical problems analyzed, such as long wait times in a clinic or falls in hospitals, Dr. Reed said.
The team that worked on reducing falls in the hospital developed solutions involving calling a nurse when a patient wants to get out of bed and being sure assistance is provided when a patient is walking or moving around.
After completing the boot camp, the medical and engineering students moved on to a seven-week summer program that paired them with UTSW clinical faculty members working on QI projects. UT Arlington students earned a certificate and three hours of credit for a systems engineering course, while for the USTW medical students, the camp is part of the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety track that provides them with 24 weeks of extensive QI training. It is mandatory for all medical students who wish to graduate with the designation of Doctor of Medicine with Distinction in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.
The UTSW nurses who joined the summer boot camp earned a certificate for participating in the QI program.