Rapidly Defining Quality Metric Targets in Healthcare

Client: Intermountain Health Care

Situation: Our client is a nonprofit health care system serving the needs of patients in the Rocky Mountain states. As an integrated system, they provide clinical excellence through three divisions, Hospitals, Physicians, and Health Plans. Their system provides for over 500,000 lives. The organization is highly commitment to achieve medical outcomes among the best in the nation. Supporting that commitment, their market research team intended to build the internal capability to define system improvement goals through qualitative research and establishing ongoing quality metrics.

Strategy: Their market research team included over a dozen professionals, many with advanced training to the PhD level. They were well versed in survey research methods, particularly in healthcare settings. They recognized the limitations of traditional qualitative methods, such as focus groups, which often fails to uncover true behaviors and experiences due to the highly personal nature of healthcare. They were also concerned with the time and effort required to conduct depth and ethnographic research both in the field and for analysis.

We chose to pursue a training approach based on our Vocal Insights process. Our process allows teams to rapidly collect depth and ethnographic data and create a shared knowledge foundation about the subject’s experiences and unspoken needs. That shared knowledge foundation points the team to key areas for measurement and subsequent targets for innovation.

Tactics: Training the entire team on our methodology would enable them to divide the data collection process among all the team members and reduce data collection to a single day.  The problem with distributing data collection across many individuals is how to quickly analyze and make sense of all the data in a robust manner that unites the team. To accomplish that, we provided training on our team image mapping process. This allows the team to analyze their piece of the data independently.  Then bring all their individual data together and quickly build a shared knowledge foundation about their subjects’ experiences, perceptions, and needs.

We conducted the training in three days. During the first day, we mapped out our process, created the open-ended interview guides, and recruited the subjects. On day two, each team member conducted their field work and analyzed their data.   On day three, we created our image map that defined the key issues, problems, and needs as targets for quality measurement and innovation.

Results: Our client now has the capability to design and implement a comprehensive in-depth qualitative study, analyze the data, and make sense of it all to guide developing quality metrics, in less than a week. In addition, they enjoy the value of creating shared knowledge foundations which enhances buy-in and empowers the organization to act quickly with confidence.

Return to the Case Study List