Individual Quality Analysis: Guidelines and Grading Rubric

Consider your experience as a student or a practicing health care provider. Think about health care operations problems or issues you have encountered in a health care setting (hospital, long-term care facility, clinic, public health, home and community care) that have affected the patient experience either directly and/or indirectly. You may also refer to the list generated from brainstorming session or a current health care issue in the media. To be practical, it is best to keep the scope of the problem small and to choose a problem you have experienced or know about.

Briefly provide background information as an overview of the situation and context such as (these are examples all may not apply) timelines, individuals involved (use fictitious names) and their roles in the organization, how the problem presented itself or was discovered, how it affected operations (symptoms of the problem such as impact on patients, staff, the community, increased costs, waste, etc.), any preliminary data collected (you may create fictitious data relevant to the issue) and any additional information that sets the stage for the development of the problem statement. You will use this information to develop the problem statement and apply the root cause analysis tool.

Define the problem and demonstrate the process you used to define the problem statement. Follow the example in the resource Writing a Problem Statement Instructions from Health Quality Ontario or another guidance document in the development of strong problem statements.