Advanced Clinical Solutions director Josie Winter explains to Healthcare World how international organisations can enhance patient safety
As healthcare becomes more global thanks to technological advances, the opportunity for knowledge sharing has increased. UK health standards have long been recognised for their excellence but thus far there are no global standards. For this reason, UK expertise is highly sought after, as Josie Winter from Advanced Clinical Solutions has found.
The company helps healthcare organisations deliver high quality clinical care and service through a unique holistic partnership approach involving evaluation, audit, research, inspection, training and education.
“Standards are a very difficult issue to tackle in the hospital sector. In the UK we are very lucky – we have one set of rules, and one set of regulations to follow,” says Josie, a former nurse. “Ensuring that you are up to standard can be a long and difficult process, but identifying the issues is a much simpler part of the process, thanks to institutions such as the JCI and the CQC (Care Quality Commission).”
So which standards?
In international markets, especially in emerging healthcare sectors, there can be multiple versions of standards and regulations, or none at all, or frequent changes – making it a minefield for providers to get their care settings and hospitals truly up to scratch. All too often, governors can be unsure if they need to follow the JCI standards, or the UK or US standards, or their own local standards – and trying to do all of these is a sure recipe for failure without a plan.
Sometimes, it’s easier to adhere to local and national standards – lining these up with your patient needs and care, and ensuring that the clinical setting (whether it be a hospital, a clinic or a practice), truly meets the local and regional patient need. Sometimes it’s best to tackle the issue by striving for a JCI or a UK-standard hospital – avoiding the issues of regional and national differences, and having a pretty concrete goal in mind. Neither of these decisions holds more merit than the other – it all depends on what your needs are.
Josie and her team of highly trained healthcare professionals are experts in patient safety, regulatory compliance and quality improvements. Having experience in both the NHS and private healthcare organisations including a large corporate med-tech organisation, they have developed and delivered hundreds of clinical audits and quality improvement plans that will fit any standard.
Delivering expertise in Africa
Currently the ACS team are working in Mozambique, Nigeria and Egypt on a World Bank project aimed at newly qualified professionals. Delivering the first module in the training programme in person, Josie has already spent time in Mozambique. Each module takes 2-3 days and part of the programme is to implement a quality or safety programme in their hospital.
Among those who took part in the three day course were the Healthcare Quality Minister for Mozambique, the Head of the Mozambique Nursing Council (who has already looked at the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council approach), several hospital CEOs and complete beginners who have just graduated. “We had 25-30 hospital CEOs in the room and the peer-to-peer networking was a very high level. They are now connected in messaging groups and can drive these improvements together in the future,” she says.
The IFC or International Finance Corporation has provided the support for the projects, recognising the importance of quality and safety in healthcare. The Nigeria programme begins in the first quarter this year while the first module in the Egypt programme took place in November last year. “We met with nearly 40 dedicated healthcare quality professionals from across Egypt and had some fantastic engagement in the Healthcare Quality Leader programme. Their healthcare system is much more advanced with highly qualified quality managers, so their main focus in terms of case study was the NHS. We chose an advanced case study for them to gain an understanding of the UK situation,” she says.
The course covered the role of senior leaders in ensuring high standards of care and building capacity for health quality leaders. It included topics such as patient safety culture, incident management and reporting, and methodologies for incident investigation. The second module, entitled Building Capacity for Healthcare Leaders, includes navigating quality and safety change with strategies for successful implementation, and setting clear goals and measurable KPIs for achieving outstanding safety and quality. It covers team dynamics, effective communication, and the importance of data among many other subjects.
With a mixed use of teaching and case studies, the final QI project allows participants to implement their learnings in an improvised situation in their own healthcare facility. For Josie, this is her favourite part of the course. “I’m looking forward to the next modules this year, especially the third module as this is where it comes tangible,” she says. “It is so rewarding to see how the participants plan to put their knowledge into practice and make a difference to patient safety and patient outcomes in their daily working lives.”