Unit-based teams are getting results — and are finding ways to share their learning with their peers face to face, online or in print. Talk with your team about how to use these and other ideas to share your learning and spread success.

1. Track your progress. UBT Tracker is a web-based tool that helps unit-based teams and consultants collect and report information about their performance improvement work. Our UBT Tracker User Guide can help you make the most of your Tracker entries or search for model projects.
2. Tell your story. Storytelling is one of the best ways  to explain partnership and show others your results. Sign your team up for our storytelling training. 
3. Step right up. UBT fairs are a dynamic forum for spreading effective practices face to face. Hosting your own webinar online lets you reach beyond the walls  of your facility.
4. Lights…camera…take action. Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute uses video ethnography— interviewing KP patients at the care site—to help teams share ideas and keep patients at the centerof performance improvement. To learn more, visit CMI’s Video Ethnography & Storytelling page [KP intranet].
5. Write all about it. Use fliers, posters and newsletters to keep others informed and engaged in your team’s projects. Post your results in the break room. Invite another unit to your huddle for a progress report. Use these templates to create your next newsletter.

Is your department’s supply room or cabinet cluttered with a mix of overstocked, understocked and out-of-date materials? Throughout Kaiser Permanente, unit-based teams are taking stock of their supplies and finding they can save time and money by designing better systems for organizing and ordering supplies. Reducing supply waste is one of many ways that teams are helping KP become more affordable for our members and patients.Sort your supplies to determine which ones to keep, which should be disposed of, and which you need more information about before deciding.

1. Create an opportunity for everyone in the department to give input about how often different supplies get used, so you don’t eliminate something the department needs.
2. Organize the supplies by figuring out where each item belongs and then labeling supplies and shelves. Also set “par” levels, figuring out the quantity the department should always have on hand.
3. Remember safety when organizing the supplies. Make sure people won’t have to bend too low, reach too far or lift something that’s too heavy.
4. Establish a signal for when supplies need to be re-ordered. For example, the signal might beflipping the bin upside down, filling out a re-order card or alerting whoever oversees ordering supplies. And have a system for alerting people when an item is getting close to its expiration date.
6. Routinize the new system by having a plan to make sure supplies stay sorted, in order and clean. For example, create a checklist to make sure the new procedures are followed or assign someone to sign off at the end of the day that the supplies are ready for the next day’s work.
7. Check in regularly with other team members to make sure the new system is working and to tweak it if it needs adjustments.
8. Consider approaching departments similar to yours that may order the same supplies. You may be able to consolidate orders. For example, many departments in the same medical facility order sutures.
9. Calculate how much money you’ve saved. Compare what you were spending before on supplies to what you’re spending now.
10. Take before and after pictures to help you communicate the story of how your department reduced waste.

Keeping the affordability point on the Value Compass in mind, unit-based teams are taking a hard look at the obstacles to collecting copayments and conducting small tests of change around proposed improvements. New practices like these are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in new revenue.

1. Educate employees about the importance of copay collection.
2. Train employees in how to ask for payment. Use role playing to help them become more comfortable with asking for payments, and create and distribute talking points or scripts.
3. Provide visual reminders for members to check in at the front desk, so a receptionist can determine if a copayment is due.
4. Post a sign with a telephone number directing patients with questions about co-payments and financial concerns to a financial counselor.
5. Call patients a week in advance of a scheduled procedure to advise them a copay will be due and, if possible, to collect it before they are admitted.
6. Add the copayment amount to patient’s outstanding balance and ask for the total amount. If balance is $100 or more, ask for payment on the account.
7. Refer patients who can’t afford to pay to facility-based financial counselors.
8. Station a full-time financial counselor in the Emergency Department.
9. Make sure financial aid applications are processed promptly by having co-workers share the load. Report workload status at weekly huddles.
10. Create a uniform note-taking system for financial forms and assign a counselor to every patient referred to financial services.

Unit-based teams encourage employees to make wise use of the National Agreement's sick-leave provisions, which help ensure that individuals have income in the event of a long-term illness or disability. Absences can also create hardship on other employees and affect member service and care. Here are some tips for improving attendance in your department: 

1. Survey your unit or department to determine if there’s confusion about the use of sick time. If needed, find ways to educate staff on sick leave, tardiness and clocking in and out.
2. Create an “attendance star” board to recognize staff members with great attendance.
3. Encourage colleagues to schedule routine appointments during off-hours or in conjunction with lunch or breaks when possible.
4. Track call-outs and use anonymous surveys to test for reasons why they are occurring.
5. Use cause-and-effect tools such as fishbone diagrams to address unforeseen circumstances, morale, physical environment, workload or personal reasons.
6. Engage staff with frequent conversations and be alert for — and respond to — indications of unhappiness or tension.
7. Recruit an attendance champion to be on the lookout for opportunities to coach others on the importance of banking sick leave.
8. Help employees track sick-leave usage by printing out and distributing the attendance calendar.
9. Use the attendance scorecard to learn about the six essentials of good attendance and to see how your team rates. Then  develop small tests of change to address the weak spots identified by the scorecard.

Want to take your team to the next level? Make good things happen for yourself, your co-workers and your members and patients? Collaboration is one of the four critical skills needed to meet future challenges with ease. Use these 12 team-building tips to make every month count in 2018.

1. Par-tay

Celebrate your team’s successes and acknowledge — even celebrate — failures. Failures are great opportunities for learning if you focus on where the process (not the person) needs improvement. After each test of change, recognize and reward contributing team members at huddles and meetings. Use small wins to keep the momentum going.

2. In and out

Help employees track their sick days and time off by printing out and distributing our colorful, always popular attendance calendar.

3. Follow the money

Learn your department’s budget as a team and get everyone’s ideas on how to reduce costs. Sign up for a business literacy training. 

4. Track it in tracker

Document your team’s work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker. It will let others see and learn from your team’s accomplishments.

5. Stop the line

Ask for help or call a stop to the work when you see an imminent danger or need help to safely complete a task. Then look for system improvements and root causes of problems — ask not just what happened, but why.

6. Grow leaders

Rotate responsibilities for leading meetings and managing improvement projects among all team members. This will build your team’s skills and strengths.

7. Two words

Huddle daily. It works. Watch the video “Huddle Power” and use the tools there to get you started huddling with your team.

8. Clean up your act

Become supply savvy. Make a full assessment of supplies — track inventory, tidy up storage areas and streamline ordering. Simple changes can save thousands of dollars. Download our 6S tool to make this work a snap. 

9. Take a (waste) walk on the wild side

Perform a waste walk. Impartially observe a work area or work process to identify waste or inefficiency. Get walking with our online Waste Walk toolkit. 

10. Save a tree

Go paperless. Don’t print out agendas and documents. Send them out via email or use a projector instead.

11. Get online

Help patients sign up on kp.org. Remind them they can securely view their medical records and most lab results, email their doctors, schedule appointments and refill prescriptions online. Bonus tip: Encourage tech-savvy members to download the kp.org app so they can access these features on their phones. Check out how one team got 90 percent of its patients signed up.

12. Spread and borrow

Did something work for your team? Spread the word to others. Need inspiration for your next improvement project? Look for other teams that have succeeded. Work with your UBT consultant or union partnership representative to spread your successes. Visit our Team-Tested Practices section to get ideas you can try with your team!

Course description

Participants will learn core facilitation practices and will practice these skills and receive feedback from instructors. The participants will determine how facilitation skills are used when leading a UBT.

Path to Performance

Level 3, 4, 5 

Duration

2 days

Who should attend

This course is intended for anyone facilitating unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend include physician, management, labor, unit-based team consultants and union partnership representatives.

Course requirements

None

Course description

Interest-Based Problem Solving offers labor management partners a method to solve problems using a non-adversarial process. This training program provides guidance in the four-step interest-based problem-solving process, along with a simulation exercise that gives participants an opportunity to practice the process.

Path to Performance

Levels 1, 2 

Duration

• 4 hours (classroom)
• 30 minutes (online)

Who should attend

People engaged in problem solving at the unit-based team level up to regional Labor Management Partnership committees should attend this training, along with any union and management staff members working on issue resolution and corrective action. Job categories who can take this class are labor, management and physician members of a unit-based team, Labor Management Partnership and unit-based team consultants, improvement advisers and Union Partnership Representatives.