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Our Approach
GAP Analysis
Conducting a gap analysis is an essential step in understanding and improving heart failure care within your organization and throughout the community you serve. It is a mission critical step in creating an informed leadership. The gap analysis establishes a baseline and forms a cornerstone for planning future work. It is remarkable how few hospitals take the time to perform even a simple gap analysis related to heart failure à even though it is the number one cause for hospital inpatient admission. The Colloquium brings the discipline to conduct an honest and focused gap analysis.
The organizational heart failure gap analysis is a tool that compares your hospital’s current reality with your potential for the future. Understanding where your organization is at the beginning of the process provides a point of departure for beginning the improvement work. Answering one question, “Where are we with heart failure?†helps create a vision of the future by posing a two additional questions, “Where do we want to be?†and “How fast do we want to get there?â€
The Colloquium’s gap analysis is uniquely rooted in relationship care. Seen through the eyes of individuals with heart failure, their needs in the community and in the hospital are mapped. Then we look through the eyes of clinicians and emerging science. Efforts are made to determine how to best meet those needs. Using this approach gave rise to the Four Domains of Heart Failure – and the various milestones within the domains.
Your coach works with your Heart Failure Leadership Team to conduct your heart failure gap analysis using the Colloquium Heart Failure Milestones and gap analysis tool.
Your Gap Analysis Milestone Worksheet
After completing the gap analysis, your hospital’s results are reduced to a compilation of all milestones and where you stand in relationship to each of them on one table. Imagine a 30,000 foot view that has granular detail all in one table. Recalling that at this point nothing is etched in granite, your initial gap analysis responses are adjusted as more information becomes available. You are left with an accurate portrayal or where you are right now with heart failure (current state). Where do you want your hospital to be (future state) in the next 3 months? 6 months? 12 months? Start thinking in terms of which of the milestones make most sense for you hospital. Are there groups of milestones that go together? Is there an opportunity to integrate existing services – or perhaps offer something new? How will your Heart Failure Leadership Team decide which milestones to work on? How will you assign priorities?
Prioritize Your Work
The organizational heart failure gap analysis honestly carried out discloses many areas that need work. It is the normal tendency of the hospital to want to take on all areas of need. This is failure mode. No organization has the resources to work on all areas of need simultaneously and be successful. There is a limit to time, talent and treasury. The Colloquium’s disciplined approach requires the prioritization of all milestones – whether they are currently in practice or not. This added dimension casts into relief the longer strategic goals of the organization with sensitivity to immediate need.