WELCOME TO NO HARM DONE!
In this episode, Jones and Balding revisit the thorny and vexed area of quality measurement – but this time we have the good sense to call in the experts – well, one expert, anyway. Cousin David joins us – that’s David Balding,
Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Melbourne, and Director of Melbourne Integrative Genomics. We think he’ll keep up!

QUALITY QUANDARY: Are we as good – or as bad – as we think we are??? We discuss Don Berwick’s recent rant about measurement and get an outsider’s perspective on whether we’ve got it completely wrong or not. Also – a lovely overview of quality measurement that pulls it all together.
4:50 Don Berwick at IHI Glasgow talking about his re-thinking of measurement.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPMJznD
13:10 Using data for improvement.
BMJ 2019; 364 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l189 (Published 15 February 2019) BMJ 2019;364:l189
28:50 THE POINT:
Fascinating study of what medical ward patients wanted to know about vs the data displayed. Useful for anyone in human services.
Pannick S, Archer S, Long SJ, et al What matters to medical ward patients, and do we measure it? A qualitative comparison of patient priorities and current practice in quality measurement, on UK NHS medical wards.
BMJ Open 2019;9:e024058. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024058 B
34:40 TLDR: Too Long Didn’t Read
We know your time is precious and you don’t always have time to open every email. This can cause extreme guilt and FOMO! Don’t worry – we read this so you wouldn’t have to. This time we’re renaming this segment : THDR – Too Hard Didn’t Read – and glad we have the expert on hand to demystify:
Scientists rise up against statistical significancehttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00857-9
44:00 FAAAQQS – FREQUENTLY ASKED AND ANSWERED QUALITY QUESTIONS. A comment/question from the NHD website – thanks Shannon! ‘I want to talk about data. I agree with you Jones about numbers showing trends but there is so much missing and we can’t guarantee that the current audience knows what they are reading. I believe it’s extremely important to have a worthwhile narrative to accompany the numbers.’
QUALITY QUOTE:
“If you don’t collect any metrics, you’re flying blind. If you collect and focus on too many, they may be obstructing your field of view.”
(Scott M. Graffius)
“Don’t count the things you do, do the things that count.” (Zig Ziglar)
Please I need a reference to some international metrics ( international body eg – IHI, NHS etc )to use as benchmarks for our quality measures.
Where can I get the figures for a whole bank of quality measures ) even if I have to pay for the data. Thanks
Hi Ayo, I’d suggest the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards. They have references and publications on hundreds of clinical indicators, and if you join their program, you can benchmark, although this is a payment based program. I’d recommend starting at their Hospital Wide clinical indicator set. Kind Regards, CJ.