Building consensus in quality improvement

Abstract

Consensus-building is essential for quality and safety initiatives, ensuring all stakeholders have a shared understanding of key issues. This alignment enhances commitment to solutions and encourages participation in implementing changes, reducing reliance on workarounds and improving outcomes.

Teams can effectively integrate consensus-building in their initiatives by focusing on certain key conditions and using tools like brainstorming, multi-voting, the nominal group technique, T-charts, the Delphi method, and decision matrices. A practical example from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on a quality improvement project regarding nutrition and blood transfusions will illustrate some of these tools in action.