The Art of Refinement: Elevating Your Program Design

Hey everyone, it's Tami Moser here! Today on the Community Health Management Design Podcast, we delved into the art of refinement. We covered essential editing techniques like using the fresh eyes approach, eliminating jargon, and ensuring consistency across your document. Remember, clarity and impact are key! Create a style guide, be specific, and don't overedit. This week's assignment? Take a section of your program design, apply these tips, and rewrite it for maximum clarity. Keep refining, keep elevating!

Tami Moser [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the community health management design podcast. I'm your host, doctor Tami Moser. And today, we're diving into the art of refinement, the crucial process of elevating your program design from good to great. You've put in weeks of hard work designing your community health program. Now it's time to polish that diamond in the rough. Remember the difference between a program that gets implemented and one that doesn't often comes down to how well it's presented. Let's start with editing techniques. The key here is to be ruthless.

Tami Moser [00:00:30]:
Every word should earn its place in your document. 1st, try the fresh eyes approach. Step away from your work and your document for at least a day. 48 hours is even better. Then come back and read it as if you're seeing it for the first time. You'll be amazed at what you notice. And one thing I will point out here, I have people do this if they're working on their dissertation or any other type of written work. I do it myself, and still, you'll find things that you miss.

Tami Moser [00:01:01]:
So let me just put this out there. Almost nothing is ever perfect in the written format or even in the audio format. There are things that just slip past you no matter how many times you review it or have others do it. But the goal is to get it as perfect as possible. And the fresh eyes approach is really important. What happens if you read for edits when right after you get done or shortly after is that you're so engrossed in the work that you read what you meant to write instead of what you actually put in writing. And the fresh eyes approach is to help you gain enough distance from the work that you actually see what's written on the page correctly for you to be able to identify what needs to be corrected. So 24 hours at a minimum.

Tami Moser [00:01:59]:
72 is that's the sweet spot. If you can hit that, then you'll start to read it and see what you actually wrote versus what you meant to write. 2nd, you can use the verse outline technique. Go through your document and create an outline based on what you've actually written, not what you intended to write. This can help find areas where your structure needs work. So, here are some practical tips. Use active voice whenever possible instead of the program will be implemented by the team, the team will implement the program. Eliminate jargon and buzzwords.

Tami Moser [00:02:35]:
If you can't explain a term to a 12 year old, consider rephrasing it. Yes. I know we're in health care and there's an expectation that those reading it are at an education level that they'll understand it. But the problem with jargon or buzzwords is that it's relevant only to some people, and for others, it has a completely different meaning. For instance, when I moved from the School of Business to the College of Pharmacy and started teaching over there, I was talking about analysis. And this was before I even got moved in over at the College of Pharmacy. And 3 of the young men and I give them kudos for for facing me is that they came over to the school of business to my office, and they said, we're having trouble understanding what you're talking about. You keep talking about analysis.

Tami Moser [00:03:25]:
We don't think you mean chemical analysis. I just started laughing and I said, I can guarantee you when I use the word analysis, I never mean chemical analysis. But they didn't understand the difference between the analysis they were used to. So when that word is used as a buzzword in the training that they had received, it meant chemical or something close to that. It didn't mean, analysis of your process. I mean, that just didn't compute for them without further explanation. I couldn't just use the terminology analysis, and they would get it. And so and even within the field of business, I was talking about or or working with a group on project management for the, business center on campus and was working with students.

Tami Moser [00:04:18]:
And one of the other professor business professor, marketing professor walked in and looked at it, and they're like, what are you working on? I'm like, well, I'm putting together Gantt chart. Oh, that's really interesting. 5 minutes later, they dragged one of the accounting professors in and said, I don't know what she's doing, but it's called a Gantt chart, and you should look at it. It looks really cool. Well, we're all in business. You would that's pretty common term terminology in the world of project management, but not necessarily across all other realms of business. And so the same thing happens in health care. You use a word that, for you, means something specific, but for others would mean something else.

Tami Moser [00:04:55]:
That's what you're trying to eliminate. And by looking at, can I explain that term to a 12 year old and they're just gonna get it? Or if I showed that word to a 12 year old in the context it's written, would they understand it? That helps you eliminate unnecessary jargon and buzzwords. 3rd, be specific and quantitative where you can. Instead of many participants, say, 65% of participants, that specificity and being able to quantify it just makes it more pointed. There's clarity in that, and people have and are often more swayed by that because they see something concrete, if you will. And 4, use subheadings and bullet points to break up text and to make it more scannable by people so that they can catch certain areas they're most interested in. Now, let's talk about ensuring consistency across sections. This is crucial for creating a cohesive professional document.

Tami Moser [00:05:54]:
Create a style guide for your document, and this is really important, especially if you've got a team that's designing together and writing different elements for each other. A style guide allows you to really be consistent. So you're guide allows you to really be consistent. So you want consistent terminology, meaning we always use participants instead of switching between participants and clients or patients. You've got a style guide that says when we're talking about those who are engaged in our program, they are participants or they are patients or they are clients, and that is how everybody should refer to them in every part of the document. Formatting rules, like headings are in 14 point bold and subheadings are in 12 point italics, or I'm gonna use, all caps and yellow for the transcript heading. Yeah. What are your rules? So across your documents, things are organized and formatted the same.

Tami Moser [00:06:51]:
And then consistent use of acronyms. So define them on first use, and then you can use the acronym. A pro tip is to use your word processor styles feature to ensure consistent formatting throughout your document. Let's take a real world example. So the Millbrook Community Health Initiative, which we've been following throughout this course initially had inconsistencies and how they refer to their diabetes prevention program. So this could be the type of issue you see in your own work without a style guide. Sometimes it was the diabetes prevention program. Other times, it was diabetes management initiative.

Tami Moser [00:07:30]:
The final standardization of this was Millbrook diabetes prevention program, MDPP. So that would be used throughout the document. The very first time we would go Millbrook's diabetes prevention program, parentheses, MDPP. And then from that point forward, we could use just MDPP. And this small change can significantly improve the clarity and professionalism of the document. That's not to say that sometimes you won't miss something, but it gives you the opportunity to catch as much as possible. And by creating that style document, you at least know what it should be when it's found in error. Now let's address some common challenges in the refinement process.

Tami Moser [00:08:16]:
So first is overediting. It's possible to over polish your document. If you find yourself making the same minor changes over and over, it's time to stop. You know, you're gonna catch what you're gonna catch. And at some point, you have to step back and go. It it's ready to go forward. I mean, if someone else brings something to my attention, I'll fix it, but I'm done editing myself. Losing your voice in the quest for professionalism, don't lose the passion and personality that make the program unique.

Tami Moser [00:08:45]:
You've got to maintain a voice in that. And then 3, inconsistency creep. As you make edits, it's easy for inconsistencies to sneak in. Regular full read throughs can help catch these. Remember, the goal is clarity and impact. Every edit should serve this purpose. And when I'm working on a team who's who's writing content and we get to the editing stage, we edit in a team. So this can work over, like, a Zoom program, or it can work all in the same room with a computer screen.

Tami Moser [00:09:18]:
But, basically, we would pull up every piece, read it out loud, stop, make edits. And that way, we're all in the room. We've got the style guide with us. What I miss, you catch, and it helps us get it done and eliminate inconsistency across. Right? So those full read throughs really help you, and having the team involved helps. So here's your assignment for this week. Take one section of your program design, perhaps your needs assessment or implementation plan, apply the editing techniques we've discussed, create a mini style guide for the section, then rewrite it for clarity and impact. We'll next look at how to create compelling executive summaries beyond what we've already talked about that capture the essence of your newly polished program design.

Tami Moser [00:10:15]:
Thank you for tuning into the community health management design podcast. Remember refinement is not about perfection. It's about impact. Your goal is to document to create a document that clearly and compellingly communicates your program's value. Until next time, this is doctor Tami Moser encouraging you to keep refining and elevating your community health endeavors.