Continuous improvement register

The continuous improvement register tracks every improvement from incidents, complaints, audits, feedback and risks through to a recorded outcome. The same page holds the conflict of interest register. This tutorial covers adding, progressing and completing improvements, and declaring conflicts.

Before you begin

• Permissions: compliance.improvements.create to add and compliance.improvements.update to start, add actions and complete. Conflicts need compliance.conflicts.declare, .manage and .approve.

Add an improvement

1. Go to Quality → Continuous improvement and select Add improvement.
2. Describe the Improvement (at least 4 characters).
3. Choose the Source: Incident, Complaint, Feedback, Audit, Self assessment, Risk, Staff suggestion or External.
4. Set the Due date (30 days ahead to start) and the Owner.
5. Write a Description of what needs to change and why, then select Add.

Improvements also arrive from other screens: Add action on a Practice Standards gap, and Raise an improvement in a risk.

Work an improvement through

1. Select the improvement’s row. The drawer shows status, due date, source (with a link to open it), linked standards and outcome.
2. Select Start to mark it in progress.
3. Under Actions, type each step in Add an action and select Add.
4. When the work is done, write the Outcome: what changed and how you know it worked (at least 5 characters).
5. Select Complete with outcome.

Read the register

1. Check the tiles: Improvements in progress, Completed, Overdue and Conflicts of interest.
2. Filter by Source or Status (Scheduled, In progress, Done, Closed, Cancelled).
3. Use the table export to share the register with your quality committee.

Declare and manage a conflict of interest

1. Select Declare a conflict.
2. If you manage conflicts, choose who it is Declared by; otherwise it is recorded as you.
3. Choose the Type of conflict, for example Related party, Financial interest or Support coordination and SIL in same group.
4. Describe the conflict (at least 10 characters), optionally choose the Participant affected and write a Proposed management plan. Select Declare.
5. A manager opens it from the Conflict of interest register tab and selects Approve management plan, or writes a Reason to close and selects Close.

Tips

• Write outcomes that can be checked. CompanionAxis sets an effectiveness check date after completion (four weeks by default).
• Declare any relationship that could affect, or look like it affects, a participant’s choice, including providing support coordination and SIL to the same participant within one group of entities.

If something goes wrong

Completing fails with Actions still open

Every action on the improvement must be finished or cancelled first. The message says how many are open.

Completing fails with Can’t do that now on a Scheduled improvement

Select Start first. Only an improvement in progress can be completed.

Already on the register

The source record already has an improvement. Open the number given in the message.

Approve management plan is greyed out

The declaration has no management plan. A conflict can’t be approved without one.