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Sponsors are the go-to people for UBT co-leads, providing resources, guidance and oversight. Effective sponsorship is a key ingredient in moving a team to high performance. If you’re a sponsor, provide your teams with the support they need to create an environment where UBT members are always learning, always improving and always innovating. It’s important for management, union and physician sponsors to model the behavior they want to see in UBT co-leads and members.

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UBT: It's not just another TLA (Three-Letter Acronym). Unit-based teams are the way we do business at Kaiser Permanente, the engine for improving the care and service we provide patients and members, and a way for everyone to have a voice on the job. 
But getting your team off the ground can be challenging, as can keeping it running. Whether you are just starting a new team or keeping your existing team on track, using these few key tools will help things go smoothly. 

 

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Tips for Managing Change

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Improving means changing, and that's not always easy

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All improvement requires making change — and change can be difficult. These practices are culled from Kaiser Permanente’s Organizational Effectiveness consultants and from unit-based teams that have moved through change successfully, developing new processes, transitioning to new leadership, etc. These tips are meant to support UBT co-leads and team members as they manage change — and the resistance that often comes with it.

For unit-based team co-leads and sponsors: Identify and manage resistance

  • Clearly communicate reasons for the change.
  • Make it safe to voice concerns throughout the change process.
  • Identify team members mostly likely to resist the change and give them key roles.
  • Involve naysayers as early and as often as possible to minimize grumbling.

For all UBT members: Assess the effects of the change and enlist support

  • Develop a common understanding of the change, getting everyone’s point of view:  Ask, "What’s being done now and what will be done differently?"
  • Engage everyone affected, including physicians, members of other departments and your team sponsor.
  • Identify specific enablers and barriers to implementation — areas that will require greater attention.
  • Allow team members to identify solutions and make decisions that affect them most.

Celebrate short-term successes — and acknowledge failures

  • After each test of change, recognize and reward contributing team members at huddles and meetings. Use these small wins to increase credibility and keep the momentum going.
  • Accept failures — and talk about what can be learned from them.

 

 

Tips for Spreading Effective Practices

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Found a solution that works? Share the success with others!

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Unit-based teams are getting results — and are finding ways to share their learning with their peers face to face, online or in print. Talk with your team about how to use these and other ideas to share your learning and spread success.

  1. Track your progress. UBT Tracker is a web-based tool that helps unit-based teams and consultants collect and report information about their performance improvement work. Our UBT Tracker User Guide can help you make the most of your Tracker entries or search for model projects.
  2. Tell your story. Storytelling is one of the best ways  to explain partnership and show others your results. Sign your team up for our storytelling training. 
  3. Step right up. UBT fairs are a dynamic forum for spreading effective practices face to face. Hosting your own webinar online lets you reach beyond the walls  of your facility.
  4. Lights…camera…take action. Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute uses video ethnography— interviewing KP patients at the care site—to help teams share ideas and keep patients at the centerof performance improvement. To learn more, visit CMI’s Video Ethnography & Storytelling page [KP intranet].
  5. Write all about it. Use fliers, posters and newsletters to keep others informed and engaged in your team’s projects. Post your results in the break room. Invite another unit to your huddle for a progress report. Use these templates to create your next newsletter.

 

Tips for Sponsors

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How to support, guide and inspire teams

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Sponsors are the go-to people for UBT co-leads, providing resources, guidance and oversight for teams — and effective sponsorship is one of the most important ingredients for a high-performing unit-based team. If you’re a sponsor, provide your teams with the support they need to create an environment where UBT members are always learning, always improving, always innovating.

  1. Make it a priority to be involved. Provide feedback and hold teams accountable for action plans.
  2. Coach and mentor co-leads; connect them with opportunities to develop needed skills or knowledge. Developing strong team members will ease your work in the long run.
  3. Take time for face time. Walk the floor with team members and occasionally attend UBT meetings.
  4. Share expectations up front with your co-sponsor and team co-leads. Define how you’ll make decisions and how you’ll communicate and how often.
  5. Help team members build their problem-solving skills by having them develop solutions, but if there are barriers outside the co-leads’ or team’s scope, get busy breaking them down.
  6. Educate your teams about local work plans and regional performance priorities so they can work on the right projects. Be sure, too, that things team members care most about get addressed.
  7. Celebrate and highlight successes, both large and small, by rewarding individuals and teams in a way that is meaningful to them — whether it’s an email, party, lunch or a parking spot for a month.
  8. Secure the resources your teams need to get work done, such as time for regular trainings or meetings and access to data that will help benchmark their performance.
  9. Establish a baseline Path to Performance rating. Assist teams in understanding the rating and connect them with resources or successful practices that will help them become high performing.
  10. Ensure teams are documenting their work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker.

 

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Well-run meetings keep members of unit-based teams connected. Employees, managers and physicians can share information and solve problems face to face.


Poorly planned or badly run meetings, on the other hand, waste participants' time and lead to frustration and cynicism.

 

This guide will help you plan and conduct meetings that build teamwork and help your UBT make improvements that benefit our members and patients. 

 

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Use the posters and tools at right in presentations or meetings to help your teams overcome barriers, compare results and reach high performance.

 

The PowerPoint slides ("These Results Prove It's Working") show examples of unit-based teams from every region making a difference for KP members and patients.

 

Borrow from the ideas on this page to inspire your team, convince doubters to come on board, and identify projects and practices that have worked for others.

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UBT fairs are a dynamic, engaging forum for spreading successful practices and sharing ideas. Throughout Kaiser Permanente, regions and facilities are discovering that UBT fairs help inspire teams to take on new performance improvement challenges.

 

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At Kaiser Permanente, the patient is at the center of all decision making, and metrics can help us see at a glance the impact—positive or negative—that a team's decisions have had on a patient. The key to good metrics is finding the few, vital pieces of information that help us understand that impact.  

 

“The purpose of measurement in quality improvement work is for learning, not judgment,” says Bob Lloyd, the executive director of performance improvement at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an independent nonprofit in Massachusetts. 

 

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Remember, the best efforts to improve and sustain performance happen in partnership. Use these tools to become proficient in performance improvement techniques, then achieve a higher quality of care and service to our members.

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