Reflection  -  Storytelling

Challenge   Standardization  of  a  large  hospital  system,  pediatric  care  model,  is  a  challenge  daily.  There  is   such  a  diverse  group  of  physicians  and  clinicians,  who  want  to  provide  care  the  best  way  they   see  fit.  The  various  ways  to  conduct  medicine  serve  for  several  stories  to  challenge  the  current   state  delivery.  The  variation  of  electronic  medical  record  applications  serves  as  another   challenge  to  drive  the  standard  of  care  delivery  for  pediatrics,  due  to  system  limitations  and   various  ways  to  deliver  care.      Tool  Selection   Storytelling  is  a  great  tool  that  can  drive  many  successes  by  asking  and  answering  questions,   while  building  suspense  and  reducing  that  suspense  by  answering  questions.  This  tool  can  be   used  to  serve  the  various  perspectives  and  stories  clinicians  provide  to  help  streamline  how  to   get  to  one  consistent  story  for  any  one  given  delivery  of  care.      Application   Through  monthly  virtual  meetings,  topics  are  gathered  to  discuss  areas  for  optimization  and   standardization.  One  specific  topic  has  been  the  prevention  of  falls  in  pediatric  patients.  The   audience  consisted  of  pediatric  physicians  who  assess  patients  for  falls.  Listening  to  the  various   sequence  of  events  and  medical  care  during  their  fall  prevention  screening,  beginning  to  the   end,  is  how  we  captured  various  ways  of  conducting  fall  assessments,  and  the  different  reasons   for  using  various  fall  screening  tools.   Through  this  storytelling  process,  pros  and  cons  were  discussed,  including  specific  details  of   each  of  the  fall  risk  assessment  tools  that  failed  to  identify  a  patient's  risk  successfully.  In   addition,  questions  and  answers  pertaining  to  each  of  their  stories  were  captured  and  answered   to  provide  clinical  evidence  based   recommendations  based  on  their  experience,  and  how   current  state  for  some  is  a  threat.  In  exchange  for  their  stories,  I  got  to  bring  forth  all  of  the  event   reporting  system  reports,  identifying  misses,  leading  to  patient  falls.  By  relating  to  this  and   communicating  the  outcomes  brought  more  insight  and  buy  in  for  the   recommendations.Therefore,  it  was  not  specifically  about  the  things  we  needed  to  accomplish   but  the  delivery  we  had  to  share  to  assure  patient  care  was  delivered  adequately.  The   storytelling  tool  delivered  the  agreement  of  transforming  the  organization  from  using  3  pediatric   fall  risk  scales,  to  one,  which  overall  decreased  the  amount  of  fall  incidents  across  the   organization.     Insight  &  Approach   After  reviewing  the  final  product  and  the  decision  for  a  solidified  tool,  the  reflection  of  the  stories   is  really  what  drove  the  decision  home.  Taking  the  multiple  stories  and  hearing  the  pros  and   cons  of  each,  really  helped  the  audience  engage  in  the  story  and  provide  their   experiences.Through  their  stories,  I  was  able  to  develop  and  utilize  my  story  to  support  the   reasoning  behind  why  a  solidified  tool  was  the  best  opportunity  for  the  company.

While  the  storytelling  tool  was  used  and  efficient  in  delivering  a  probable  solution,  other  design   thinking  tools  could  have  been  just  as  successful.  An  example  would  be  mind  mapping-  taking   the  data  I  currently  had  and  presented  in  my  story,  could  have  helped  deliver  patterns  and   insights  being  missed  through  current  state  fall  prevention  assessments.  The  involvement  of  all   the  physicians  getting  a  visual  of  each  of  the  concepts  and  their  importance  could  have  been   more  engaging  for  each  of  them.  Sometimes  a  picture  means  a  lot  more  than  words.

