Welcome to our latest blog. We have searched high and low for some musical inspiration to share some desired (and less desired) improvement behaviours. Hope you enjoy our Top 20 Improvement songs, why don’t you play the track to remind you next time you encounter one these below. Enjoy!
If you have a few more tracks for your own Improvement Top 20 – let’s start Volume 2… drop us a line!
At Number 20. We don’t need another hero – Tina Turner
Tina letting us know that healthcare improvements are far better in multi-disciplinary teams. Those inspiration figures leading without coaching support can sometimes lead to unstainable improvements. And what happens when they leave?
In at 19… You’re So Vain by Carly Simon
Carly has seen a few of these. The leader/team manager who ‘knows it all’, keen to shoehorn their ‘experienced views’ whilst ‘practicing’ improvement. Often lacking a few key coaching skills
Breaking through at No 18. On My Own, By Pattie LaBelle and Michael Mcdonald
That training curriculum deadline looms. Not got time to get an improvement team together, too embarrassed to join a team so late? Nothing like doing a low-hanging fruit unstainable QI by yourself, As Pattie says ‘this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.’
In at 17. I heard it through the grape vine, by the legendary Marvin Gaye
All too common this one. Marvin in his own unique way describes the risk of relying on anecdotes and hearsay to formulate improvement aims. No proper measurements at baseline either. Oh no!
At 16, Thinking Out Loud, its Mr Ed Sheeran!
In the charts for a while now… Ed knows that it is important to brainstorm so to ‘understand the problem’ better. When not playing his guitar, he has a secret stash of sticky notes for a quick process map or fishbone to use with his improvement team.
Staying at 15, More than words, Extreme.
Don’t write pages when a few will do. Show your understanding, designs and measurements with a few choice improvement figures and run charts. Put it all together in an A3! It may engage more people than a business unit report…
A solid 14 for… Islands In The Stream, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
Kenny and Dolly talk about the importance of sharing and scaling improvements properly through well designed quality management systems. Just how many isolated ward based sepsis programmes does a Trust need?
At 13, Livin’ on a Prayer, Bon Jovi.
Yep, you guessed it, random unevidenced interventions. Playing whac-a-mole until something sticks, usually under the cloud of operational pressures. Definitely ‘Livin’ on a prayer’.
Falling sharply at Number 12. Money for Nothing. Dire Straits.
Dire Straits wants you to know about starting small with your PDSAs. Don’t waste staff time and money on large scale PDSAs from the outset. Unless you want to print out 500 copies again of the wrong proforma again. There goes the budget!
Another steep drop at 11. Another one bites the dust by Queen
Freddie Mercury tells us of those Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, where we just keep abandoning ideas because they ‘haven’t worked’. Forgetting to predict what happens in the planning phase, not taking the time to study or learn from each PDSA cycle.
Clinging on to No 10. Sitting on the dock of the bay by Otis reading
Otis is looking back on all those procrastinators and perfectionists who seem to take an eternity to move their improvements forward. Waiting for their data to come through (not SMART!), or waiting for that all important improvement team meeting in 3 months…
Up to Number 9. Shake it off by Taylor Swift.
Taylors in on it too. Just like in the Survivor track. No PDSA is a ‘bad’ PDSA. So if the PDSA doesn’t meet your prediction, learn from it and ‘shake it off’.
Straight in at number 8. Eye of the Tiger. Survivor
Put on this banging track to keep you working towards your improvement aim. Filled with resilience and perseverance, you may have some set backs, but with all that learning, you and your team will get there!
Going up to 7. Another Brick in the Wall. Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd appreciates that some improvements face many obstacles. The trick is to remove one brick at a time by breaking larger problems into smaller ones.
Falling at Number 6. The only way is up. Yazz and The Plastic Population.
We’ve all been there, those serial baseline measurements values were even lower than expected. But on the plus side, this leaves more scope to improve. Over to you Yazz!
Coming up to 5… Counting Stars by One Republic
This band knows that if you don’t measure you cannot say you have improved. They do acknowledge however that counting stars may not meet the ‘relevance’ criteria in as a healthcare SMART measurement.
Strong showing at No 4. Tow out of three ain’t bad by Meat Loaf.
Meat Loaf gets ‘very angry’ with those improvers who set challenging improvement aims from a baseline of 20% all the way to 100% in one go, in complex healthcare environments. He says set achievable expectations. Get from 20% to a new baseline of 66%, as Meat Loaf says ‘Two out of three ain’t bad’. You can always set a new improvement aim in the future.
Staying high at number 3… Levitating by Dua Lipa
Dua understands that a trend upwards of 7 consecutive measurement points in a row rarely happens by chance! The probability of that happening is 1 in 128!
Go Dua!
At number 2. I’ll Stand by you. The Pretenders,
Last week’s number one song. Through thick and thin, your improvement coach will stand by you. Fail fast, learn quick. Don’t give up. No doubt, a coach who loves their job can guide you through the whole improvement experience.
Up one place to Number 1, we have… Take a Bow by Madonna.
Madonna wants to celebrate with you! A true improvement team effort. All the stakeholders involved (including patients), a real attempt to understand the problem, clear aims and SMART measurement, using PDSA for learning. Sustaining over time, evidenced with data. All under the umbrella of continuous improvement. Take a bow!
