Zero Harm
A world in which no one is harmed in health care
Every year, tens of millions of patients throughout the world suffer injuries or die as a result of unsafe medical care.
Despite the intention of health services to prevent or cure diseases, all too often health care itself causes harm to its users. Certain infections, injuries due to medical procedures, amputations of the wrong organ or limb, poisoning or even death resulting from erroneous dosages, are all classified as hospital-related harmful incidents or adverse events.
The use of quality improvement (QI) methods is an evidence-based way to address these important quality challenges, and has the potential to do so at scale. For example, a study of 27 QI Collaboratives in 12 countries showed that 87% of health facilities significantly improved performance and sustained that improvement over time (Franco et al., 2011).
Take care of the patient and everything else will follow
Quality Improvement
Quality improvement is best defined as “the combined and unceasing efforts of everyone—healthcare professionals, patients and their families, researchers, payers, planners and educators—to make the changes that will lead to better patient outcomes (health), better system performance (care) and better professional development (learning)
The gaps in health outcomes require healthcare workers and leadership to in addition to clinical knowledge acquire a set of knowledge and skills to take the best evidence and put it into practice consistently and reliably for the improvement of care for patients.
The Model for Improvement
Test, Implement and Scale
The Model for Improvement (MFI), is a systematic coaching approach to determining goals, developing indicators, root-cause-analysis(RCA) and identifying and prioritizing interventions. This is followed by the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, in which small tests of change are tested rapidly.
QI Training and Education
QI Capability Building
QI Capability Building, a flexible QI skills building program which can be done via self-paced eLearning, in-service training or public workshop focusing on:
Improvement project charter for each poor performing indicator
Up-skilling teams on QI processes
Improved team effectiveness
Better understanding of the problem solving and intervention design
Measurement and data integration
Systematic QI execution
Dr Mawela will support and work alongside you to support facility-level QI teams and supervisors through QI capability development, mentorship, development of SOPs, and job aids, and enable technical teams to identify appropriate resources for their particular needs.