Healthcare Quality And Patient Safety Improvement

Transforming Hospital Performance, Eliminating Medical Errors

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Healthcare services today are scrutinised, measured, evaluated and publicised as never before. An increasingly educated public expects to receive nothing less than excellent, safe care. It must be the mission of every healthcare manager to deliver that excellence and safety.

Quality improvement – the process of continually evaluating existing processes of care and developing new standards of practice – therefore has to be a core competency for every healthcare manager and clinician at every level of medical practice: be they in primary care clinics, acute hospitals, specialist centres of excellence or regulatory bodies. Likewise, every healthcare manager has a critical role to play in assuring patient safety and minimising medical errors.

This comprehensive course from IIR has been fully revised and updated to provide comprehensive coverage, not only of the fundamental tools and techniques through which quality management and improvement can be delivered but also of the very latest practices being used to deliver enhanced patient safety in the most progressive healthcare systems.

Delivered in two parts, this intense and immersive 5-day workshop provides participants with the benefit of two expert faculty members providing detailed instruction in:

• Part One – Healthcare Quality Improvement – through lectures, case studies and multiple team exercises, participants will learn how to deliver strategic quality management and how to lead, from beginning to end, quality improvement projects that transform patient care and hospital performance.
• Part Two – Delivering Patient Safety – participants will learn how to dramatically improve patient safety through both proactive risk management and a deeper understanding of the role of human factors in medical errors. Two video-based simulations will place participants in a ‘virtual hospital’ where they can immediately apply their learning to real patient safety challenges

The course provides complete coverage of the content of the Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) examination of the US-based Healthcare Quality Certification Board (HQCB) – the only accredited international certification that defines world-class excellence in the discipline of healthcare quality management and improvement. The course will therefore be invaluable, not only to those entering healthcare quality for the first time but also for established healthcare managers needing an update of what is current in the field. It will be especially vital for anyone considering or preparing for CPHQ certification, which recognises the professional and academic achievement of clinicians and healthcare managers.

Module One – Strategic Quality Management And Leadership
Quality management should never be a ‘standalone’ or isolated activity but a fundamental, integrated component of a healthcare organisation’s strategy for delivering patient care. In Module one we examine the importance of aligning quality improvement activities with a hospital or health system’s strategic goals. We review the essential tools and techniques of quality management and the vital role of the quality manager as a healthcare leader, a role-model and an agent of change.

• An Introduction to quality management in healthcare
• Making the business case for healthcare quality
• Managing and leading change

Healthcare managers have no scarcity of information on the quality of the services their organisation is delivering. In fact, so much information is available that a responsible professional could become paralysed from the sheer volume and speed of the flow. In Module two we provide managers with the tools to help them filter and prioritise the wealth of information available to them and use the information they collect to measure and analyse quality.

• Prioritising and planning for improvement
• Collecting healthcare quality data
• Analysing healthcare quality data

After quality data has been collected and analysed, what happens next? How does a healthcare manager reach agreement with their colleagues on recommendations for change and then create and execute an action plan for performance improvement? In Module three we introduce delegates to performance management as a framework within which to design and implement a strategic quality improvement plan, describing the activities and processes that should take place within each phase of the framework.

• Selecting goals, measures and targets
• Making change happen
• Embedding and sustaining change

Module Four – Patient Safety And Risk Management
Harm to patients resulting from medical errors by healthcare professionals is a very significant problem. The consequential costs of litigation, wasted time and extra treatment create a substantial drain on the resources of healthcare systems. In Module four we look at the main causes of medical errors, at the lessons learned from tragic medical error cases and the ideas being adopted by progressive healthcare organisations to limit or eliminate risk to both patients and healthcare providers.

• Planning for patient safety
• Undertaking risk management exercises
• Bringing it all together: A risk management simulation

No matter how thorough a healthcare team’s technical, clinical or scientific training there is still significant potential for error in the way they communicate and make decisions in a sometimes fast-paced and chaotic environment. In response to such challenges, the aviation industry developed training focused on effective teamwork, known as Team Resource Management (TRM). Now being applied with great success in healthcare in countries such as the UK and USA, TRM focuses on the role of human factors in high-stress, high-risk environments such as operating theatres and emergency departments

• An introduction to Team Resource Management (TRM)
• Assessing non-technical skills in healthcare
• Situational awareness