Dive Brief:
- A new study published in Production and Operations Management has concluded that the Management-By-Walking-Around technique, in which hospital leaders work directly with front-line staff to get suggestions for improvement or resolve problems, may do more harm than good.
- To test out the benefits, researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health And Harvard Business School conducted a randomized controlled study involving an 18-month MBWA program intended to improve patient safety.
- Under the program, senior health leaders devoted too much time to analyzing problems and too little time to practical solutions, negatively impacting nurses' perceptions of improvement, researchers found.
Dive Insight:
One key problem with MBWA is that it's a means to an end rather than an automatic improvement, researchers said in a statement. When MBWA works, it's the action-taking that results from the program, rather than the simple presence of health leaders, that can positively impact front-line staff performance. "Organizations should take action on known problems and build capacity for solving more," researchers concluded.