Use of Continuous Performance Improvement in Academics: A Culture Change

The close alignment of academic pediatric departments with the clinical mission of children’s hospitals and university health systems has created a “burning platform” for the highest quality patient outcomes. With our hospital partner, Seattle Children’s Hospital, we began a long-term cultural transformation to achieve excellence through ongoing, incremental change by using a process of continuous performance improvement (CPI). CPI focuses on patients and families as the beneficiaries of all interventions and improvements to provide the highest standards of quality, safety, delivery, and cost efficiency with an engaged staff and administration. The foundation of CPI methodology is the Toyota Production System, known in Japan as the “Kaizen” system.¹ In the past 8 years, the Department of Pediatrics not only embraced the principles of CPI in our clinical programs, but also sought applications in our teaching and research missions.

CPI, Continuous performance improvement, RPIW, Rapid process improvement workshop