Patient Safety Planning Tools / Objectives / Use a flowchart
Organizations can use the flowchart tool to map out the steps of any process. From a patient checking in at the front desk to a phlebotomist drawing blood, processes can be viewed as a series of separate steps. Once broken down, it is easier to see improvement opportunities, such as how to make sure a lab result is communicated back to the patient quickly.
Chart the process
- Gather people from different areas involved in the process.
- Agree on the first and last steps of the process, then map out the steps in between using the tips below.
- This might take multiple tries. Map out the process you have, not the process you wish you had.
- Pick someone to act as a scribe.
- Use shapes to show steps in the process and arrows to show the direction of flow. (See example from AHRQ)
Discuss the steps
For each step in the flow chart, ask group members to check all that apply:
- Works well
- Not a problem
- Small problem
- Real problem
- Totally broken
- Cannot rate
- We’re working on it
- Source of patient complaint
Identify improvements
Identify a step to change to improve safety. Consider each step and look for:
- Bottlenecks and other sources of delay
- Rework due to errors
- Role ambiguity
- Duplicated efforts
- Unnecessary steps
- Sources of waste
- Variation
- Hand-offs
Adapted from: Practice Facilitation Handbook. Content last reviewed January 2017. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.