{"id":3717,"date":"2018-02-26T12:16:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T17:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/?page_id=3717"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:44:15","slug":"project-sustainment-and-spread","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/project-sustainment-and-spread\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainment Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainment planning focuses on building systems to ensure that improvements continue even after the QI project is complete. Typically, this work involves identifying key stakeholders who will champion this work, a long-term plan for monitoring data, and implementing ways to embed new processes into daily practice. Sustainment planning is not only considered at the end of the project but also in the beginning of the planning process to ensure success.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Steps<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Begin with the end of the project in mind and incorporate sustainment into your project plan early. Consider potential risks to sustaining your project and how your team can address them.<\/li>\n<li>Build buy-in from your team especially teammates on the frontline. These individuals are ultimately the ones who will drive the work, so it is crucial that they understand their role and overall plan.<\/li>\n<li>Strive to make your improvement work with the status quo by designing reliable systems and not temporary solutions reliant on individual effort. The goal is to implement workflows that can be easily embedded into daily routines.<\/li>\n<li>Standardize and monitor your project work. Develop standard work for teammates and use tools and techniques to track progress (i.e. visual management boards, daily huddles, etc). This step will help reinforce changes and catch any drift away from work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Resources to Get Started<\/h2>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse;width: 97.564%;height: 108px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 98px\">\n<td style=\"width: 7.60678%;text-align: center;height: 98px\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8060\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Read.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"137\" height=\"137\" \/><\/strong><strong>Read<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 93.2057%;height: 98px\">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2020\/07\/IHISustainingImprovementWhitePaper.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IHI Sustaining Improvement White Paper<\/a>: This white paper provides a theoretical framework for spreading and sustaining performance improvement initiatives including a high performance management system, key drivers for high performance management at the front line and case studies<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2021\/08\/SpreadSustainabilityHowToGuidev141.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spread &amp; Sustainability-How to Guide<\/a>: This document was created as a part of IHI\u2019s Protecting 5 Million Lives From Harm, Getting Started Kit. This guide provides some practical tips for generating spread and sustainment including best practices and examples of success.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2018\/06\/NHS-Sustainability-Guide.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sustainability Guide<\/a>, National Health Service (NHS): This document provides a framework for sustainment planning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 23px\">\n<td style=\"width: 7.60678%;height: 10px;text-align: center\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8065\" src=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2022\/01\/Icon-Use-2-600x600.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Use<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 93.2057%;height: 10px\">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2020\/07\/Enhancing-Project-Spread-and-Sustainability.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Enhancing Project Spread and Sustainability<\/a>: A classic resource which provides helpful tips, practical advice and a framework for successful spread and sustainment of performance improvement.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2025\/09\/Master-Sustainment-Assessment-Tool.xlsx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sustainment Assessment Tool<\/a> &#8211; Here is an assessment tool that we use at IHQI to coach our project teams on sustainment. The tool is derived from National Health Service (NHS) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/463\/2018\/06\/NHS-Sustainability-Model.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sustainability Model<\/a> and helps identify specific components of sustainment to focus on.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>Related QI Concepts<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/project-charter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Project Charter<\/a> \u2013 The project charter provides a roadmap for the project and can be a great way to identify potential threats to sustainment early on.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/project-spread\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spread<\/a> \u2013 Once a project is sustained over time, it could potentially be spread to other areas.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/stakeholder-analysis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stakeholder Analysis &amp; Engagement<\/a> \u2013 People drive the work of any project so it is important to consider how you will engage key stakeholders throughout your project and beyond.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/visual-management-board\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Visual Management<\/a> \u2013 Managing a visual tool will help your team track the project\u2019s progress and serve as a visual reminder for project goals and processes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainment planning focuses on building systems to ensure that improvements continue even after the QI project is complete. Typically, this work involves identifying key stakeholders who will champion this work, a long-term plan for monitoring data, and implementing ways to embed new processes into daily practice. Sustainment planning is not only considered at the end &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/project-sustainment-and-spread\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Sustainment Planning\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80925,"featured_media":0,"parent":210,"menu_order":58,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-3717","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sustainment Planning - Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/ihqi\/resources\/project-sustainment-and-spread\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sustainment Planning - Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sustainment planning focuses on building systems to ensure that improvements continue even after the QI project is complete. 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