Improving the Birth Registration Service Using Kotter's Change Model: A Quality Improvement Study from Qatar

Abstract

Introduction: The increased demand for birth registration (BR) services at the Birth Registration Unit (BRU), under the Ministry of Public Health in Qatar, and the negative media criticism called for an urgent quality improvement (QI) plan to be conducted. Methods: A QI project was carried out to improve the process of birth certificate registration in the country. This project depended on Kotter's eight-stage model as a guide for the aspired transformation. Thus, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, “straw-man” process map, root cause analysis, political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal (PESTLE) factor analysis, and operational analysis of the BR process were attempted through cooperation and one–one interviews with service providers and stakeholders. The baseline measurements involved in the project focused on two main outcomes: client satisfaction and the cycle time of the BR process. Results: The post-change customer satisfaction survey showed higher overall satisfaction (0.66% overall dissatisfaction) with the services compared to the pre-change client satisfaction survey (17.3% overall dissatisfaction). Moreover, the calculated cycle time of the redesigned process (6.30 min) represented a substantial decrease as compared to the pre-change cycle time (almost 7 days). Conclusion: The study of the BR process revealed many facts regarding delays and wasted time. It served as a trigger for the change and made solving this problem much easier by examining the real underlying factors. In addition, the successful use of Kotter's change model at the BRU serves as a potential source for the diffusion of such model across other health institutions.

Keywords

• birth
• kotter's change model
• qatar
• quality improvement