1. Readiness Consultations

2. Readiness Consultations
The goal of the Community and Clinical Readiness Consultations is to assess individual community and clinic readiness to address chronic disease care in the community
The teams will complete a readiness questionnaire to help identify factors that influence the development and adoption of innovations in the community
The Community Facilitator will support the teams in filling out the questionnaire and help prepare them for the program

3. What is Readiness
Readiness is about how prepared a community or clinic is to take action on an issue.
For FORGE AHEAD readiness means the degree to which your community or clinic is ready to act to make changes to improve diabetes programs and clinical services
In order to understand your community’s readiness, you will answer a questionnaire about either your community or your clinic

4. Readiness Scores
Community and Clinical team members will be asked to complete the questionnaire 3 times:
3 months prior to the first QI workshop
during the second QI workshop, and
after the last workshop.
By completing it three times, we can capture the changes in a community’s or clinic’s readiness over time.

5. Community Readiness

6. Community Readiness Questionnaire
The purpose of the readiness consultations is to assess individual community readiness to address chronic disease care in the community
By understanding your community’s readiness, you will be in a better position to understand how your community can improve its care for people with diabetes

7. Community Readiness Questionnaire
Understanding community readiness can help to plan the types of improvements to community programs
If your community tries to make an improvement that it is not ready for, the chance of success is lower
For example, a community that does not fully understand the impact of diabetes, may be less likely to support diabetes programs, or attend diabetes programs
If your community tries to make an improvement in an area that needs improvement, it may provide significant benefits
For example, a community that has low awareness about the impact of diabetes, may want to increase awareness about diabetes so that the community increases its knowledge about diabetes

8. Community Readiness Questionnaire
The key benefits of the questionnaire:
Matching a community program or innovation to the community’s level of readiness is a key to achieving success.
It focuses on the issue of diabetes in the community and can help to plan future diabetes activities and services.

9. Community Readiness Questionnaire
18 pages in length, takes approx. 45 minutes
18 two-part questions
Each community team member will be asked to complete the questionnaire
The questions ask about perspectives of community members & community leaders, it does NOT ask them about their personal perspectives.
The questions were developed using the 5 dimensions of the Community Readiness Model
2-part question
First part is circle the right answer
Second part is space to explain your answer

10. Community Readiness Letter of Information
As a group, read through the letter of information on page 2.

11. Community Readiness Questionnaire Instructions
As a group, read through the instructions on page 3.

12. Community Readiness Questionnaire
As a group, briefly go through the questionnaire to understand its format, and how to answer part (a) and part (b) questions
Each team member should be familiar with the questionnaire, and have a good idea of what to expect when they answer it

13. Achieving a Meaningful Score
There are no right or wrong answers
If all community protrams worked perfectly and everyone provided optimal care, there would be no need for quality improvement programs
The more honest and realistic the answers, the better the results will contribute to your community and your peoples with diabetes
A low response on the scale is not a negative reflection on the community – it is an assessment that will inform and guide the community through the clinical quality improvement initiative

14. Community Readiness: Reporting
Providing the overall scores and the associated definition will give teams a snap shot of how ready their community is to address diabetes
The average item score of the team and associated definition will also be provided in the report to provide more information about the different elements of readiness
Finally, the report will include a summary of the description team members provided in the second part of the questions

15. Community Readiness
Are there any questions or concerns about the questionnaire?

16. Clinical Readiness

17. Clinical Readiness Questionnaire
The purpose of the readiness consultations is to determine how a healthcare clinic functions to serve patients with diabetes, and how those functions can be improved
Readiness consultations are based on the idea that better functioning healthcare systems are more effective at producing the results they are designed to achieve, which in this case is improved chronic care for patients with diabetes

18. Clinical Readiness
One of the first steps in Forge Ahead is to assess the ‘readiness’ of a health clinic (including nurses, physicians, the health director, administrative staff and any other support staff) in engaging as a clinic in activities to improve the care they provide for patients with diabetes in your community.

19. General Process for the Readiness Consultation
Use the questionnaire provided by FORGE AHEAD
The questionnaires will be evaluated to determine the clinics readiness
Develop goals and action plans and implement innovations/changes to create Clinical Change and improve Clinical Readiness (during quality improvement initiative)
The process for the clinical and community readiness consultation is very similar. We will discuss it in detail this afternoon.
We tried to keep things almost the same to that your role and what you do with one team can also be done with the other. Some of the content/topics are different but the process will be almost the same.

20. Clinical Readiness Questionnaire
Goal: Use the ideas in the Chronic care model to understand the readiness of healthcare clinics and services to be successful at addressing diabetes in the community.
Approach: The questionnaire is designed to provide a team readiness score that will help the healthcare leaders and providers identify strengths and weaknesses in their clinic, sets goals for QI, develop strategies, and evaluate success.
Benefit: Help to assess how a healthcare clinic functions, and in turn identify key components for improved chronic illness care for patients with diabetes
Will show the expanded chronic care model in the next slide

21. Clinical Readiness Questionnaire
27 pages in length, takes approx. 1 hour
Each clinical team member will be asked to complete the questionnaire
The questions ask about key components of health systems that can promote high quality care and are related to the Chronic Care model
Team members are asked to score each question on a scale from 0 to 11, along with a score justification for why they believe that number reflects the state of their health clinic.

22. Achieving a Meaningful Score
There are no right or wrong answers
If all health centre systems worked perfectly and everyone provided optimal care, there would be no need for quality improvement programs
The more honest and realistic the answers, the better the results will contribute to the clinic and your community of patients with diabetes
A low response on the scale is not a negative reflection on the clinic – it is an assessment that will inform and guide the clinic through the clinical quality improvement initiative

23. Achieving a Meaningful Score
Scores often go down
It is common for health clinic staff to initially believe they are providing better care than they actually are
As clinics engage in QI and use the readiness results, team members will become more familiar with what an effective health centre system involves
Score justifications are important
Score justifications are an opportunity to describe why someone selected a particular answer on the questionnaire. They help clarify thinking and perspectives that will help interpret the results later.
Justifications: Clear and meaningful recording enhances the value of the readiness questionnaire for the purpose of improving systems.