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Quality improvement report
Identifying value in healthcare transformation initiatives: an evaluation of an approach to benefits realisation
  1. Venessa Vas1,
  2. Loretta Gyambibi1,
  3. Linda Eftychiou1,
  4. Hassan Al-Omari1,
  5. James Glass1,
  6. Mark Smith1,
  7. Dionne Matthew1,2
  1. 1KHP Cardiovascular & Respiratory Partnership, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  2. 2LOGEX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Dr Venessa Vas; venessa.vas{at}gstt.nhs.uk

Abstract

Benefits realisation management (BRM) aims to facilitate the process of identifying, measuring and tracking desired benefits derived from a project. Improvement methodology frameworks often describe BRM as integral to identifying and measuring value derived from transformation initiatives within the National Health Service and beyond. Despite this, reporting of benefits realisation plans and methodological approaches to identifying and measuring benefits remains surprisingly scarce.

This project aimed to pilot and evaluate the application of a purpose-designed benefits mapping template with seven newly funded transformation projects across three hospitals in the UK. The scope of the template was to identify key project benefits and metrics associated with the project initiatives. Plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles were used to capture the approach and utilisation of the template by project teams. These methods also enabled critical review of the template as an enabler to identifying relevant benefits and project metrics.

Stakeholder engagement with the templates was variable. This was attributed to clinical pressures induced by the second wave of COVID-19 in the UK. Despite this, teams were able to produce completed templates outlining a number of wide-ranging benefits. Themes of benefits drawn from the maps include patient experience, patient outcomes, staff experience, access to care and efficiency. Qualitative feedback from teams included the reported value of a structured template to help recognise all the potential benefits associated with each project initiative. The PDSA cycles highlighted the template as an early step in BRM. Further components to this process are recommended to include consensus of the key metrics to be measured, a tool that summarises the reporting details of those metrics, and an effective means to collate reported metrics overtime.

  • Evaluation methodology
  • Healthcare quality improvement
  • PDSA
  • Quality improvement methodologies
  • Quality measurement

Data availability statement

Data are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2023-002349

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    Data availability statement

    Data are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors VV, MS, LE and HAO contributed to application and evaluation of the benefits mapping template through utilisation of plan-do-study-act templates. VV drafted the manuscript with input from all coauthors. VV is responsible for the overall content as the guarantor. All authors have contributed by critically reviewing the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.