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goShadow is a flexible data collection tool designed to be the input for any process improvement methodology. Whether your organization has adopted Lean, Six Sigma, the Model for Improvement or doesn't use a specific methodology, goShadow is an easy-to-use platform that collects actionable, time-bound qualitative and quantitative data that integrates with any quality improvement method.
Anyone who has ever thought, “There has to be a better way to do this” is already shadowing. goShadow helps to easily document those insights and collects data to support them in real time.
Shadowing gives staff the ability to provide crucial input into the patient experience and improvement process, increasing their job satisfaction and project buy-in. goShadow can be used by employees to share best practices, develop collegiality and collaborate across care silos.
Shadowing provides immediate feedback from patients, staff and families about any aspect of their experience, enabling the involvement of those stakeholders in the co-design of better experiences and value-driven health care.
The value of shadowing can go beyond the objective observation of the way patients and families move through and view a process or experience. Shadowing provides a pathway to develop empathy and to capture the human insights that contextualize hard data.
Hard data is essential but alone it is insufficient to transform a culture. A profoundly important result of shadowing is the qualitative information that shadowing yields: “This is how it feels” not just “This is how it looks” to patients and families.
goShadow is not a tool for collecting standardized data sets or conducting clinical trials. At its core, it’s a staff engagement and process improvement tool.
In order to achieve results quickly, a plan should be developed to explore the scope of a project and the best starting point. If the project is a large experience, such as the maternity experience which can span months, break the experience down into smaller segments. Shadow segments one at a time. They don’t have to be shadowed in order. If the goal is to segment an office practice or day of surgery experience, decide if the team involved is going to shadow individual patients 1:1 or if they’re going to shadow all of the patients and staff in one area of the segment pathway. This will determine the volume and intensity of data collection and how templates can be utilized in goShadow. There is no correct method. Don’t forget that the system of care delivery is what is being observed and not specific people and that the system is the same 80% of the time; identify if there are potential outliers and denote them in goShadow for future review.
Since goShadow provides real-time reporting, data confluence can easily be observed and shared among a team. Once the team observes trends in the aggregate time, process qualitative data, the team should report on their findings--qualitative and quantitative-- and make recommendations for next steps based off of that data. One recommendation may be to shadow further. Another could be to assemble a test of change based off of data collected. Another could be to do a deeper dive into a single segment. Depending on the goal of the project, there is no single, correct answer. However, in order to defy project inertia, assessment of aims and goals and re-shadowing to measure if a change results in an improvement and to identify future projects is critical.
Because the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Data Protection act mandate that patient privacy and personal data are protected, shadowers are trained to omit patient and staff identifying information when shadowing and reporting.
There will be occasions when a shadower observes an occurrence that is less than ideal. In most cases, revealing this information is exactly what is going to help to improve the experience for patients and families. Shadowing is most meaningful when sharing honest observations and reports. If a particularly egregious event is encountered during shadowing, consider sharing it with the organizational shadowing champion.
There are many ways that goShadow can be applied to improvement work. From process mapping, documentation and export of best practices, to quantitative and qualitative data collection aggregation and reporting for process improvement and delivery of value-driven care, goShadow is designed to flex with the project specific needs of users. To get started quickly, the goShadow team suggests a quick call to review shadowing basics, set up experiences and templates, and review reporting capabilities. Resources such as the goShadow quickStart guide is also an easy way to start using the free app and platform right away.
Send our team an email to learn how to best utilize goShadow and our analysis and improvement projects in a variety of areas, including:
- Operational Efficiency
- Training and Documentation
- Patient Experience
- Staff Vitality/Joy at Work
- Cost Management
- Resource Allocation
goShadow’s capability to capture and report time-stamped qualitative notes and feedback make it an ideal tool to incorporate other initiatives such as “What Matters to You?” or other short survey questions to ask patients and staff in conjunction with the shadowing process.
For organizations who perform leadership rounds or track communication behaviors such as AIDET® (Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation, and Thank You), goShadow can systematically capture the behaviors are or are not completed, how long it takes to complete and the specific language used in line with other shadowing data. Over time, best practices can be identified and spread.
When kicking off a collaborative, a team should document their perception of how an experience occurs from start to finish, where a patient travels and for how long, and who they encounter. This is the perceived current state. After shadowing to determine the true current state, the two experiences are compared in order to complete a gap analysis of the process.
Shadowing is for everyone and can be done by anyone. Students, clinical or clerical staff, volunteers, a third party or anyone who wishes to study and understand the process-level details of a process or experience can shadow. A shadower observes any experience or process with an objective point of view. Shadowers gather information and impressions for any number of reasons–to build empathy for patients and staff, to improve an experience or to document and co-design a better one. They are not “secret shoppers,” nor do they evaluate employee performance without their knowledge.
goShadow’s capability to capture and report time-stamped qualitative notes and feedback make it an ideal tool to incorporate other initiatives such as “What Matters to You?” or other short survey questions to ask patients and staff in conjunction with the shadowing process.
For organizations who perform leadership rounds or track communication behaviors such as AIDET® (Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation, and Thank You), goShadow can systematically capture the behaviors are or are not completed, how long it takes to complete and the specific language used in line with other shadowing data. Over time, best practices can be identified and spread.
When kicking off a collaborative, a team should document their perception of how an experience occurs from start to finish, where a patient travels and for how long, and who they encounter. This is the perceived current state. After shadowing to determine the true current state, the two experiences are compared in order to complete a gap analysis of the process.
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