A Plan to Transform Primary and Community Care at Catalonia based on a process improvement methodology

Abstract

Abstract After the COVID-19 pandemic, the Catalan healthcare system sought to promote a plan to strengthen and transform primary care in order to provide high quality healthcare services whilst making an optimal use of resources. This article defines the implementation and deployment strategy across the Catalan region. The Lean methodology has been used extensively in other sectors for process improvement. More recently, it has been adopted in large hospitals, showing good results, so Lean was selected as the most appropriate method to achieve this project’s goal. The Process Office of the Catalan Health System, which is made up of experts in Lean methodology, has been involved in defining and deploying the strategy to all 374 primary care teams (PCTs) within the Catalan healthcare system. A deployment strategy comprised of four phases (each consisting of a number of sessions) was followed: (1) explaining the project’s goals and training the professionals in the methodology; (2) assessing the current status regarding the processes with the various PCTs; (3) identifying and implementing improvement projects; (4) defining key performance indicators to monitor the impact of the projects. As a conclusion, this project has allowed to successfully define and implement a standard at a strategic and deployment level of a project for primary care improvement that may be replicated in other regions. The key elements to ensure success have been the following: Leadership, implementation of an improvement methodology, standardization of sessions, and involvement and training of front-line professionals.