Agile Values in QI: Fostering Collaboration, Adaptability, and Sustainable Change

Introduction

Singapore Health Services (SHS) is dedicated to building a High Reliability healthcare Organization (HRO) to sustain positive patient outcomes by fostering continuous improvement and trust, and embracing adaptability in the face of unforeseen and complex challenges1. A structured approach to guide teams to use a combination of improvement methodologies that are most appropriate to the project needs was implemented.  One of the methodologies is the Agile Quality Improvement in Healthcare (AgileQITM), a methodology incorporating Agile values2, prioritizing the purpose of improvement, the beneficiaries, and the necessary interactions for achieving the improvement, thereby providing value and flexibility to end-users (Fig. 1).By addressing the dynamic needs of end-users, AgileQITM enables sustainable improvements in the complex healthcare environment. Successfully launched by IPSQ in 2021, AgileQITM is backed by educational initiatives and dedicated healthcare domains and teams

Aim

This poster aims to demonstrate the successful integration of AgileQITM methodology, complementing the suite of improvement tools adopted by SHS, highlighting its role in promoting communication, person-centric solutions, end user collaboration, and adaptability to advance the achievement of a HRO in healthcare.

Results

Between September 2021 and December 2023, 183 attendees were engaged through workshops and webinars from 12 SHS institutions. All webinar respondents and 96% of workshop respondents (65 out of 68) affirmed the benefits of Agile values in improvement practices (Fig. 2).Several project teams have already applied the AgileQI methodology in their improvement initiatives. For example, one initiative led to an adaptable solution for similar patient profiles, while another developed a Sleep Apnea educational module (Phase 1) providing 24/7 access to health information and services for end-users (Fig. 3)

Results

The successful implementation of AgileQITM methodology has demonstrated its ability to complement other improvement methodologies (e.g., system thinking, design thinking, etc.) , in fostering active communication and adaptability, person-centric solutions, end-user collaboration. Additionally, AgileQITM will be included as an essential methodology in facilitating SHS Team SingHealth Collaborative Action for Large-scale Efforts (TeamSCALE), which supports large-scale collaboratives to drive sustainable change in a complex healthcare environment locally and regionally, leading SHS to advance as a HRO (Fig. 4).