A home health agency’s Performance Improvement Committee has decided to base staff educational programs onaggregated...

The Pareto chart is the most useful tool for the Performance Improvement Committee to determine educational targets based on aggregated occurrence report data. The Pareto chart helps to prioritize areas for improvement by showing the frequency or impact of different causes of problems, following the 80/20 rule (where 80% of problems often stem from 20% of causes). By identifying the most significant issues, the committee can focus its limited resources on the areas that will have the greatest impact on improving staff performance and patient outcomes.

Force field analysis (A): This tool is used for decision-making by analyzing forces for and against a change, but it is lesssuited for prioritizing based on frequency data.

Control chart (B): Used to monitor process stability over time, not for prioritization.

Scattergram (D): Used to identify correlations between variables, not for prioritizing educational targets.

References

NAHQ Body of Knowledge: Quality Improvement Tools and Techniques

NAHQ CPHQ Exam Preparation Materials: Using Pareto Charts in Performance Improvement

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