Communication and collaboration are a major concern in healthcare organizations across
the country related to quality and safe patient care. This paper describes the efforts of
one healthcare organization in addressing the issues in its Interdisciplinary Team
conferences utilizing a performance improvement methodology (Six Sigma).
Participatory action research was used to engage healthcare team members to provide
feedback. Implementations of the interventions, including education of the performance
improvement methodology, were evaluated using qualitative methods. During a six
month period, data was collected and analyzed through observations and participant
interviews. The participants included all entities associated with patient care. At the end
of six month, only 14 of the original 28 volunteers were left to provide information
regarding the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the interventions. Overall, the
interventions promoted self-awareness among the team members of the importance of
sharing pertinent patient care information in order to enhance patient care.