‘Learning Improvement Science at Northern Health (LISN)’ workshop was established in June 2015, with the aim to give Northern Health staff a way to understand improvement methodology and feel empowered to go back to their work environment and make improvements.

LISN is an action learning improvement workshop built around a simulation of Day Procedure Unit (DPU). Multiple cycles are conducted to improve patient’s clinical outcomes and access, reduce documentation errors, while at the same time, improve efficiency. This workshop is crucial to the High Reliability (HRO) – Trusted Care transformation, as one of the critical success factors in achieving HRO is creating enabled healthcare workers who have an understanding of improvement science (LISN) and Reliable Innovation and Safety Science (RISSN).

On Wednesday this week, the workshop was delivered for the 50th time.

Ariana Carrodus, Project Manager, has been part of LISN since it began.

“I look forward to delivering LISN every month – it’s always such a rewarding experience to see participants grow, learn and even have some fun throughout the day. I feel very privileged that I have been able to be part of LISN for the last three and a half years,” she said.

Since 2015, over 500 participants from Northern Health and health services from across the state have attended. Currently, Northern Health is working in partnership with the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) to deliver LISN regularly to RCH staff and consumers.

Simon Lane, Improvement Capability Advisor at RCH, was involved with Northern Health’s team in 2015, when the workshop was first developed, and has witnessed it evolving considerably.

Upon identifying that RCH hadn’t had improvement workshops with simulations, the decision was made to collaborate with Northern Health. Simon is a firm believer that in order to know something deeply, you need to try to teach it to others.

“Ariana and I are now co-presenting to our staff. It’s been really effective and we’ve found that having mixed groups from various health organisations is valued by the participants. They get to hear that some of the concepts are similar and exchange ideas. Healthcare is a complex system and all departments need to work together to achieve a particular service delivery for a patient,” he said.

Simon explained that in order to make changes, organisations need input from all departments, and that is why all areas need to have the skills and knowledge of improvement science.

If you are interested in attending LISN please email the team at lisn.hro@nh.org.au

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