Using animation to promote QI in your organisation
QI and CQI
CC Animation Studio has made lots of films about Quality Improvement (QI) and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), showing how 'Plan, Do, Study, Act' can decrease negative incidents, such as bringing down rates of infection and mortality in operating theatres, hospitals and veterinary surgeries.
People often think of QI as boring, systems-based and most likely above their pay grade. However, a really successful QI strategy is all about people and relationships.
If individuals don’t understand or buy into the goals of QI or don’t support and encourage new behaviours, nothing changes.
If people don't see the point of it, they just won't do it.
An early example
This early QI film is a whiteboard animation from 2014. Created by Dr Mike Evans, with the help of QI pioneer Don Berwick, it presents an overview and background of how the idea spread from tech and manufacturing and came to be part of the medical mindset.
This film talks about how seemingly small changes can make a big difference.
How, for example, according to a 2010 study, simply having medical staff wash their hands before and after meeting patients would save 247 lives a day in the United States alone.
As I once wrote in a sadly unused draft, "We pull hardest when it's together and the ocean is full of drops".
Share-ability
We have seen in our work that a beautiful and shareable explainer film or animation can be a powerful tool in promoting the kind of engagement that produces revolutions in quality.
We believe a really good QI animation should be no longer than five minutes long. It should begin with the assumption that people already want to be involved, and it should outline the ethos of QI, as well as some short-term goals and measurable changes that your organisation is working towards right now.
See our Creating Your Perfect Script article for more about how to uncover your main objectives and key messages.
Visualisation of complex systems
One of the reasons why QI animations are popular is that they help people to visualise complex systems and networks at a glance.
Animations can feature diagrams as part of the narrative – if a picture is worth a thousand words, a good diagram can be worth an entire chapter of complex and confusing explanations. This helps to keep the time down and interest levels high.
I've seen QI films that were 37 minutes long – this is fine for an academic training programme but most people do not have the time, or the attention span, to make this part of their day, and they are highly unlikely to share it with anyone else.
QI is about attention to detail and the specific needs of your organisation, so a film that is rushed out without consultation or is a collection of cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf motion graphic sausage people is less likely to work well.
What works best?
In our experience, a film that has been made after consultation with key stakeholders, outlining how good things are right now and how great they can be in the future, is the most successful. Creating something specific to you, featuring people and things that your team sees every day, created with the kind of care and attention you are hoping for them to emulate.
Explainer films and whiteboard animations
For a successful QI programme to be implemented, a sustained and repeated message – one that grows and improves over time – is vital.
Explainer films and whiteboard animations lend themselves extremely well to being part of a sustained campaign. They can also prove cost-effective; the characters and images produced can go on to populate posters, leaflets, and other promotional material, helping to tie the campaign together and repeatedly reminding people to remain involved and aware.
If you are interested in a facilitated session on how to implement a truly revolutionary QI strategy, complete with visual minutes, or you want to talk to us about creating a beautiful and engaging QI film specific to you and your organisation, please don't hesitate to get in touch!
Dann Casswell
Creative Director
CC Animation Studio
