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Alberta AIM works through a collaborative model of learning, where physicians and their teams work collectively with other participating teams to apply the improvement principles in their own practice environments guided by expert faculty.
The AIM program has six, 2-day interactive learning sessions where clinic teams attend these sessions, over approximately a 14 month period. It provides the teams with the knowledge, skills, and materials to create improved processes in a specific topic area.
The learning sessions are organized by theme, and include;
- Improving access by reducing delays for appointments
- Improving access by reducing delays at appointments
- Operational team efficiency
- Clinical team effectiveness
- Clinical outcomes and spread
- Sustaining the change
The time in between learning sessions is referred to as an “action period”, where teams learn how to implement changes and receive support through email and phone conversations with faculty and other members of their learning group. This way of learning is referred to as a “collaborative”. It is an approach to continuous improvement has been successful internationally as well as in Alberta.
Teams are involved through a structured process, involving five major steps:
- Forming a team – those doing the work must lead and drive the change. Teams include physicians, health professionals and office support staff.
- Setting goals - improving access for an appointment, improving efficiency at the appointment and improving clinical care by using proactive, prepared multi-disciplinary teams.
- Mapping a patient visit through the office.
- Making changes - to improve access, efficiency and clinical care.
- Measuring - to ensure that the changes being made actually result in improvement.
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