In designing a process or standardized approach to caring for or accomplishing a task with a specific population, I would start by defining my population and then my goal by creating an AIM(s) statement. According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and AIM(s) statement should be population specific, measurable and time-specific (n.d.). Furthermore, Dr. Berwick encourages people to think big and be amibitious when setting their AIM(s) and reinforces, that if it needs to be further refined or re-evaluaated, that can be done later (Berwick, n.d.). For example, an AIM statement I have come up with to solve a problem in my practice setting is "To improve care for all patients in the ED by improving the medical screening and clearance process for patients who present with psychiatric symptoms". As you can see, I have work to do in refining this AIM statement to create a measureable outcome. I struggled with this as we don't currently keep reliable data on patients who were inappropriately triaged or screened into the psych are of our ED. Not having the baseline data and ongoing outcomes data to evaluate a program or process is a common challenge in program evaluation due to the challenges of data collection such as lack of documentation, inaccurate documentation and resources to evaluate the data (Donabedian, 1988; McDavid, Huse, & Hawthorne, …show more content…
As I don't have baseline data to evaluate the breadth of the issue and will likely have a challenge gaining outcomes directly related to this patient care issue, I will further refine my AIM(s) statement to include output measure and indirect measures such as #