Rechristening QAPI
QAPI is Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement
Committee - an approach endorsed by CMS
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
said Juliet trying to make a point we all understand.
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| Pixabay Image. No attribution required |
So I ask again: What's in the name?
Everything.
A name is often the first thing we learn about a thing or a
person and falling to our humaneness, we form judgments about it; so I would
say that this first piece of information is especially important. It can
lean someone in a positive or a negative direction. And those first
impressions can set the stage for future interactions.
For our means and purposes the name QAPI is okay for a group
that is sitting somewhere assessing performance and pondering on ideas that may
or may not lead to improvement (apologize for dull clichés). People like to
spell it as QUAPI giving it an extra U probably because they like to spell a
thing by how they think it sounds – if it sounds like the irritating noises a
wet duck would make then it must spell like that too. Or maybe because the
decisions or actions in “QUAPI” move so slow that it’s only natural to compare
it to a duck’s gait. Of course who wants to miss an opportunity to call
something futile without actually calling it futile, especially if it’s a
meeting?
I know of a story where a medical director of a clinical service
in an attempt to sound witty mocked in a QAPI meeting full of members at the
precise time when the power point presentation stuck – as they sometimes do in
meetings: sloppy “QUAPI” and oh the room cracked up! What a powerful reclaiming
of the ground by the know-all of the clinical processes – doctors! These
quack-quack-quapi meetings have done an excellent job PDSAing at various
hospitals and departments and, in the ugly development phase, the name is not
helping. You can’t really blame the high school kids for that, can you?
Instead of further diminishing the importance of the QAPI committees
let’s look at why are the quality professionals self-inflicting themselves with
a title that only reminds them of their lame moments. Let’s take a stab at
renaming the slow duck.
How about COAST? Clinical Outcomes and Systems Excellence Team.
I am sure there can be many renditions with multiple clever sounding acronyms,
but it’s a start. Notice that it also removes the term “committee” from the
title – which made the whole thing, I think, very stiff and unapproachable. How
can the proletariat staff get closer to bourgeois lawmaker- Mr. Moneybags? They
form their own team because you win a football match with a team (not committee
but a team!). We’re always in search of a David vs a Goliath story. Not to
disappoint anyone, but there’s none to be found here. Except that, David
birthed Goliath and now it’s being having to manage.
Acronym COAST may remind you of the coast of a battle field
where you’re side won, vacation memories (okay may be counterproductive because
might have to thinking why you are here, not there), or something else,
anything, but a slow moving wet duck.
