| Literature DB >> 35804468 |
Michael Sykes1, Elaine O'Halloran2, Lucy Mahon2, Jenny McSharry2, Louise Allan3, Richard Thomson4, Tracy Finch5, Niina Kolehmainen4.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: National audits are a common, but variably effective, intervention to improve services. This study aimed to design an intervention to increase the effectiveness of national audit.Entities:
Keywords: Audit and feedback; Implementation; Intervention development; Quality improvement
Year: 2022 PMID: 35804468 PMCID: PMC9264699 DOI: 10.1186/s40814-022-01099-9
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Pilot Feasibility Stud ISSN: 2055-5784
Fig. 1An overview of the study design indicating key inputs to intervention development [17]
A description of each of the seven specified steps
| Aims: To address trust and credibility and prepare for action planning | |
| Who: Clinical lead. | |
| When: Undertaken before the National audit report is received. | |
| Preparation step has two parts: | |
| 1. Draft section of report that gives a brief description of: | |
| a) Source, advisory group representation and external drivers for participation | |
| b) How data were collected and experienced difficulties with reliable measurement | |
| c) Refer to later description of triangulation with other data | |
| 2. Prepare for next stage by: | |
| a) Identify influential members of the specialty and Trust governance groups | |
| b) Gather Trust board and governance group minutes, quality account, quality strategy and regulator’s (Care Quality Commission (CQC)) report | |
| c) Identify stakeholder group and arrange meeting(s) to discuss data and improvements | |
| | |
| Aim: To identify priorities for action from within the hospital feedback. | |
| Who: Clinical lead and Clinical governance lead | |
| When: Month 0-1. | |
| 1. Review full data set for potential priorities, where potential priorities are those: | |
| a) With lower quartile performance | |
| b) Low absolute performance, where not undertaking target care behaviour might result in significant impact on patient/carer/organisation | |
| c) For which there is not more robust data that indicates acceptable performance | |
| 2. Identify high performance to celebrate success | |
| 3. Discuss full data set with stakeholder group, targeting on: risks to patient; risks to organisation; triangulation with other data; and successes to be celebrated. Generate a final list of priorities for action with: | |
| a) Lower quartile performance which is considered unacceptable to stakeholder group | |
| b) Absolute performance and impact on patient/carer and organisation which is not considered acceptable | |
| 4. Discuss target care behaviours with stakeholder group to identify relationship to other data (e.g. performance, complaints, CQC inspection, length of stay, cost) and organisational priorities (e.g. Trust board, commissioner, CQC). | |
| Aim: To align messages about data to organisational priorities | |
| Who: Clinical lead and Clinical governance lead | |
| When: Month 0–1 | |
| 1. Review the quality account and minutes from quality committee and organisational board that describe organisational priorities. Consider links to national audit priorities for action | |
| 2. Identify other stakeholders to seek to involve, based upon audit findings and related organisational priorities. Discuss the audit data and the relationship to their priority, whether there is data and/or existing actions that relates to both with these stakeholders. | |
| | |
| Aim: To present prioritised data items in a way that increases motivation to commit organisational resources | |
| Who: Clinical lead and Clinical governance lead | |
| When: month 1–2. | |
| 1. Present loss-framed data (e.g. 40% patients did NOT get…) | |
| 2. Present comparison | |
| 3. Identify position compared to own previous performance, national and peer group to be able to give verbal feedback at meeting. | |
| | |
| Aim: To seek evidence about influences upon performance and potential actions to address barriers | |
| Who: Participants as described below | |
| When: Month 1–3 | |
| Seek evidence of influences and actions to address barriers by, for example: | |
| 1. Literature search by hospital librarian of impacts upon performance of target care behaviour | |
| 2. Clinical governance lead reviews Trust data for internal high-performers and national audit data for those beyond the Trust. Ask those identified about what helps performance. | |
| 3. Observe care delivery: Look for possible causes of performance and possible waste (e.g. unnecessary dual data entry) that could be removed to create capacity for change. Observations of care delivery. Findings fed back to clinical lead. | |
| 4. Clinical governance lead: Share findings on noticeboards and ask for reasons via email/anonymous comments. Collate and feedback comments to clinical lead. | |
| 5. Clinical lead: Review list of potential strategies [ | |
| Aim: To model the link between barrier, action and organisational priorities | |
| Who: Clinical lead | |
| When: Month 3–4. | |
| Duration: 6 h | |
| 1. Draft logical improvement plan | |
| 2. Discuss draft improvement plan and whether could/should adapt existing actions with service improvement lead, stakeholder group (including deputy director of nursing and influential voices on governance groups) and potential action owners. | |
| 3. Ask whether they agree with the choice of action to address barrier, or whether a different action might be more effective. | |
| 4. Ask potential action owner to take responsibility for completion of the action | |
| Aim: To present to governance group in order to gain approval for the action plan. | |
| Who: Clinical lead | |
| When: Month 4–5. | |
| Describe, verbally and in an accompanying written report: | |
| 1. Data quality; | |
| 2. Prioritisation method and how plan developed; | |
| 3. Successes to celebrate | |
| 4. The logical improvement plans, including relative and loss-framed performance. | |
| 5. The action plan that specifies the target care behaviour, the action to improve detailing: what will be done and the rationale for action; by whom; to whom; by when and how it will be monitored | |
| |
Influences upon the implementation of each specified step
| Key findings and messages from NPT toolkit exercise | |
|---|---|
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated the step may not be understand what the step requires of them, may not agree that it should be part of their work, or ‘buy-in’ to the intervention. | |
| Narrative responses indicated that triangulation would be seen as different; the method could come from existing report; clinical leads may not have the time/capacity to undertake the work (especially in relation to gathering and reading the minutes) but that job planning may be an opportunity but depends upon clinical director support; clinical governance staff may support the step more than clinical lead; may need to be negotiated/arranged well in advance and this may need data, “to hook them in”. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.1 Goal setting; 1.2 Problem solving; 1.4 Action planning; 4.1 Instruction on how to perform behavioura; 8.7 Graded taska; 9.1 Credible source | |
| | |
| Responses to the semantic differential scale in the NPT toolkit indicated the step may not be distinguished from current ways of working and key individuals may not drive the step forward. | |
| Narrative comments included that: There may be different perspectives about what constitutes a priority between the clinical group and the senior leaders; Suggestion to clearly state the aim from prioritising; Suggestion to filter data to short list, rather than review full data set; That those writing the local improvement plan may wish to exclude a target behaviour if they believe they are unable to improve it. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.1 Goal setting; 1.2 Problem solving; 1.3 Goal setting outcome; 1.4 Action planning; 9.1 Credible source. | |
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated that individuals may not understand what the step requires of them, may not agree to it becoming part of their work and may not ‘buy-in’ to the intervention. | |
| Narrative comments included that: it may be difficult to find documents and time to review minutes; those involved may be aware of regulators’ priorities; clinical governance staff may be happy to help; other stakeholders may not engage but that linking to costs (e.g. via length of stay) may support engagement. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.1 Goal setting; 1.2 Problem solving; 1.4 Action planning; 4.1 Instruction on how to perform behavioura; 5.3 Information about social consequencesa; 6.1 Demonstrate behavioura; 9.1 Credible source. | |
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated that individuals may not understand what the step requires of them, may not agree to it becoming part of their work and may not ‘buy-in’ to the intervention. | |
| Narrative comments included that: Including positive framing may increase support of key individuals; Comparison should be locally defined, for example, against local hospital; Trust may not allow use of loss-framed data. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.1 Goal setting; 1.2 Problem solving; 1.4 Action planning; 5.3 Information about social consequencesa; 9.1 Credible source. | |
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated that individuals may not understand what the step requires of them, may not perceive value in it, may not agree to it becoming part of their work and may not ‘buy-in’ to the intervention. | |
| Narrative responses indicated that: May not be hospital librarian doing evidence summaries, maybe this should be done by the audit provider; clinical governance team may be pleased to do work to identify high- and low-performing teams and data for triangulation; finding staff time to undertake observation of care may be difficult, although the service improvement team might support this work, but could only do for a few priorities; need to give examples of what ‘waste’ might look like. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.4 Action planning; 4.1 Instruction on how to perform the behaviour; 6.1 Demonstration of the behaviour; 9.1 Credible source; 12.2 Re-structuring of the social environment; 13.2 Framing/re-framing | |
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated that individuals may not understand what the step requires of them, may not perceive value in it, may not agree to it becoming part of their work and may not continue to support the intervention. | |
| Narrative responses indicated that: Need to seek agreement from action owners and know what to do if they do not agree. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.2 Problem solving; 1.4 Action planning; 1.6 Discrepancy between current behaviour and goala; 2.5 Monitoring of outcomes of behaviour without feedback4.1 Instruction on how to perform the behaviour; 6.1 Demonstration of the behaviour; 8.1 Behavioural practicea; 9.1 Credible source; 12.2 Re-structuring of the social environment. | |
| | |
| The semantic differential scale responses indicated that individuals may not understand what the step requires of them, may not agree to it becoming part of their work and may not ‘buy-in’ to the intervention. | |
| Narrative responses indicated that the participant may only be given a couple of minutes to present at the committee. | |
| Techniques to support implementation: 1.1 Goal setting; 1.2 Problem solving; 1.4 Action planning; 9.1 Credible source. |
aBehaviour Change Technique not included in the Phase 6 manual
Evidence for fidelity of enactment and acceptability
“And so we were into this [the gaps in care] and link performance to priorities. We talked about that, that there is now a high priority on getting dementia.” | |
[Interviewer prompted about the use of comparators] “Yes, yes, now I remember. Exactly. So currently we do not feel we are in a position to compare ourselves to a top 10% because some of the numbers are really low.” | |
“we’ve looked at the audit and we’ve identified gaps in our strategy and we’ve since added those things into our strategy…So some of the gaps were identification of delirium, so we are now going to have 4AT score done on all over 65s who are coming into hospital, whether they’re coming for a medical or a surgical reason, and that will then be rolled out to other admission areas like medical admission area and surgical admission area and other areas. But initially, our focus is towards emergency department.” | |
“One of the other aspects of strategy, when we looked at the dementia audit, was that we had a training issue. Staff were not trained on dementia, Tier 1 training.” | |
“Staff were not trained on dementia, Tier 1 training. And now we have that as a mandatory field in the electronic service record. So everybody from a cleaner, porter to the chief executive officer will have to be trained.” | |
“Maybe I’m not reading my emails completely and trying to understand it, but I went into the meeting with some scepticism. What am I going to learn here? But obviously, to my mind, it linked to quality improvement straight away rather than auditing and how this- And so I found it a useful challenge to how we were thinking.” “And it’s basically educating QI process into the audit. So why the audit is done and what should you do with the audit and planning another cycle? What needs to be changed? Yes, those two hours or four hours, were well spent.” | |
“I think the workshop, in a way, for us gave us a nutshell of how we did in the audit overall. You picked up the domains of where we did well and where we didn’t do well. You gave an overview like this of how to go on about it. So, it was a… Each aspect was looked at in depth, in a way. So, you made us think about the local challenges … to take the next step forward. Even though you didn’t say the right way forward, you made us [see] the right things which would be useful for the trust in a way with the right action plan. So, I think overall it was very useful. Interviewer: Should I have said the things you should be doing? Interviewee: I don’t think you should. So, I think the way you phrased it or led it is- Because obviously each trust is different and unique.” | |
“The workshops, as I said, maybe half a day. So, just the time could’ve been cut short. Telephone calls, maybe give a bit more time.” And later expanded on this to add, “it’s a national project with the reputation of the trust at stake, but if you’re given such a responsibility there should be a dedicated time.” The same participant later said that the time commitment would be acceptable if there was recognised, and suggested that this could be in the job plan agreed with their manager, “it’s not the time. So, as with anything… It’s the recognition. Exactly. Again, you can see it’s the frustration of not being recognised for so many other things and this comes on the top of one more”. |
A summary of the aim, methods and results for each intervention development phase
| Phase and aim | Methods | Key findings |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: To describe the response to a national audit | Interviews, observations and documentary analysis, iteratively presenting the findings to both a co-design group and an advisory group | Data collection was manual, took an average of 37 min per record and involved variable interpretation both of the notes and the standards being measured. Feedback took 15 months and was typically seen by two or three people. The clinical lead was responsible for developing an organisational action plan. They did this drawing upon national, rather than local, results. The actions were constrained by what the clinical lead could personally deliver. There was little evidence that they selected actions aligned to an analysis of influences upon performance. The action plan was reviewed, amended and approved at directorate- and organisational-level committees. In reaching their decision, the committees discussed the motivation of the audit provider, the validity of the data, relative performance, triangulation with other data and risks to organisational priorities. |
| Phase 2: To identify and specify enhancements | Co-design methods involving facilitated discussion about evidence, theory and the use of a specifying framework. Research team developed a logic model to review theoretical coherence. | The co-design group identified the opportunity to enhance data collection, feedback and action planning. They prioritised action planning and defined the outcome sought. The research team identified theoretically-coherent target behaviours that aligned to the outcome: target low baseline performance; address recipient priorities; develop trust and credibility; present meaningful comparisons; present loss-framed data; identify and address barriers to performance; develop a conceptual model; involve stakeholders; consider the opportunity cost. The co-design group considered these proposals, rejecting the use of loss-framing. The co-design group specified how the selected behaviours could be delivered. Their specification was used to group the target behaviours into a series of ‘steps’ (Table |
| Phase 3: To develop a strategy to implement the enhancements | Co-design methods involving facilitated discussion using theory-informed toolkit | The key normalisation process theory mechanisms anticipated to influence implementation were coherence and cognitive participation. Individual and collective specification, initiation, legitimation were important ingredients. There were differences in the ingredients between the steps. We selected a strategy including an educational workshop and virtual educational outreach. Figure |
| Phase 4: To test and refine the intervention | Delivery of the intervention followed by interviews exploring fidelity, feasibility, acceptability and appropriateness [ | All the BCTs in the manual were delivered. There was evidence for fidelity of receipt, fidelity of enactment and of acceptability of the intervention. Potential enhancements to the intervention included addressing the time commitment, creating opportunities to learn from others, further supporting the analysis of influences and developing content so those developing improvement actions gain feedback about the impact of their actions. We revised the content, re-named the intervention, amended activities to address time commitment, incorporate a more structured analysis of influences, support collaboration and to develop local feedback mechanisms. |
| Phase 5: To adapt the intervention to a second national audit | Re-design and consultation to reflect differences in clinical topic, context, contractual requirements and recent evidence. | Delivery changed in response to: the new clinical topic, by changing examples based on dementia standards to those within the diabetes audit and incorporating delivery through a credible source (NDA Clinical lead); context, pandemic related restrictions meant that it was delivered virtually, requiring additional content about the use of Microsoft Teams and Google JamBoard; the NDA contractual requirements, to address a pre-determined target for improvement thereby narrowing the recipients’ selection of priorities (step 1); recent evidence [ |
| Phase 6: To test and refine the intervention | Coding the BCTs within the manual, delivery of the intervention followed by coding the BCTs delivered and interviews exploring fidelity, appropriateness and acceptability. Re-design and consultation to reflect interview findings. | All BCTs identified in the written protocol were delivered by facilitators. Participants reported positive attitudes towards the intervention and that the intervention was appropriate. |
BCTs observed in written materials and intervention webinars
| Identified in written materials | Delivered |
|---|---|
| 1.1 Goal setting (behaviour) | Yes |
| 1.2 Problem solving | Yes |
| 1.3 Goal setting (outcome) | Yes |
| 1.4 Action planning | Yes |
| 2.2 Feedback on behaviour | Yes |
| 2.3 Self-monitoring of behaviour | Yes |
| 2.3 Self-monitoring of outcome | Yes |
| 2.5 Monitoring of outcome of behaviour without feedback | Yes |
| 5.1 Information about health consequences | Yes |
| 9.1 Credible source | Yes |
| 12.2 Re-structuring of the social environment | Yes |
| 13.2 Framing/re-framing | Yes |
Example quotes from phase 6 feasibility study
“I think it’s been really lovely...I’m really quite enjoying it” “the programme has been really, really good. I feel like, you know, there’s been some brilliant opportunities from it” | |
“we are already beginning to see it” “Yes, I do think attending them will hopefully be helpful to the success of our initiatives” | |
The QIC was time-consuming and required some effort, but was worthwhile: “we don’t get additional time or resources to do it. So, at this point, it’s your own goodwill that you are doing the extra work… I’m really quite enjoying it, and we are already beginning to see the improvements” (Interviewee 4). Part of the perceived burden reflected the current context: “At the moment, it’s particularly tricky for everybody who’s working in the NHS with the pandemic and now with recovering...” | |
“I thought it was managed really, really well. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out with it being virtual, I think it worked well”. (Interviewee 3) [Participants] “have a chance to raise a hand [referring to the ‘raise hand’ function in Microsoft Teams] and bring their point forward so, you get a more balanced view” (Interviewee 6). Participants described that virtual delivery increased accessibility and made the intervention more easily incorporated into busy clinical schedules, but may have led to a loss of informal sharing of learning, for example over coffee breaks. |
Co-design group definitions to terms within the initial outcome of the intervention
| Term | Co-production group definition |
|---|---|
| ‘Target poor performance’ | Poor performance should be defined by each recipient in both absolute terms and by considering performance relative to other hospitals (e.g. lower quartile). |
| ‘Relevant’ | Recipients understand and the actions address the reasons for poor performance. |
| ‘Actionable’ | Action is resourced and agreed. |
| ‘Specific’ | States who would be doing what, as part of the action to improve care. |
| ‘Time-bound’ | When the action to improve would be completed. |
| ‘Measurable’ | How completion of the action will be confirmed. |
GUIDED checklist (Duncan et al. 2020) [10]
| 1. Report the context for which the intervention was developed. | Background: Variably effective national audits |
| 2. Report the purpose of the intervention development process | Background: “to enhance the effectiveness of national audit through the iterative integration of evidence, theory and stakeholder input” |
| 3. Report the target population for the intervention development process | Methods—phase 4 |
| 4. Report how any published intervention development approach contributed to the development process | Background |
| 5. Report how evidence from different sources informed the intervention development process | Method, including Fig. |
| 6. Report how/if published theory informed the intervention development process. | Method |
| 7. Report any use of components from an existing intervention in the current intervention development process | Method (phase 5) |
| 8. Report any guiding principles, people or factors that were prioritised when making decisions during the intervention development process. | Method: co-design |
| 9. Report how stakeholders contributed to the intervention development process. | Method and discussion |
| 10. Report how the intervention changed in content and format from the start of the intervention development process | Results |
| 11. Report any changes to interventions required or likely to be required for subgroups | Results: phase 5 |
| 12. Report important uncertainties at the end of the intervention development process | Discussion |
| 13. Follow TIDieR guidance when describing the developed intervention | Table 9 in Appendix |
| 14. Report the intervention development process in an open access format. | Open access publication sought |
The TIDieR (Template for Intervention Description and Replication) Checklist
| Item number | Where located | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Audit Quality Improvement Collaborative | 9 | ||
| the development of commitment and informational appraisal to select actions resonated with the theory of organisational readiness for change (Weiner 2009) [ | 12 | ||
| The workshop included slides to increase the coherence and cognitive participation of the target behaviours described in the logic model. These were supported by online materials to support participants to identify influences upon participation using the Theoretical Domains Framework, align these influences to actions and to identify stakeholder influence and interest. | 13 | ||
| The active ingredients are described in the logic model | 15 | ||
| Facilitator (MS), Clinical Lead, Previous QIC leads | 19 | ||
| Virtual delivery through MS teams and using Google JamBoard | 19 | ||
| Virtual delivery through MS teams and using Google JamBoard | 19 | ||
| Two virtual workshops, two virtual outreach sessions and 12 facilitated, virtual meetings. | 15 and 19 | ||
Not applicable Note: Tailoring work is undertaken by intervention participants |