This Q Visit was an open day visit to give insight into the joint work developed between the Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal College of Physicians and Academy of Medical Sciences, encouraging a systems approach within health care improvement.

The visit was inspired by the recent publication by the Royal Academy of Engineering titled Engineering better care: a systems approach to health and care design and continuous improvement.

The systems approach was an eye opener and the need for collaboration between service users and designers is a step in the right direction

Offering plenary talks, skills workshops and real-life engineering examples, this visit introduced core elements of the approach – people thinking, risk thinking, design thinking and systems thinking – to consider how current quality improvement tools and approaches could be enhanced through wider application of approaches more traditionally associated with engineering.

Aim: To introduce Q members to the fundamental aspects of using a systems approach within healthcare improvement.

Our keynote speakers were Dr John Dean, Clinical Director for quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians and Professor John Clarkson from the Royal Academy of Engineering. Here, they introduce the day and talk about what we mean by a systems approach:

Here, Q members Edward Rysdale and Gareth Adkins talk with Dr James Ward about their reflections on the visit:

Twitter Chat

Following the visit, Q hosted a successful Twitter Chat on the 17 October, discussing insights from the visit and systems approaches within healthcare. The discussion was based around five key questions:

• What opportunities are there for introducing systems approaches into health care?
• What might be the issues with using a systems approach?
• Are there areas you would have liked to have heard or learnt more about from the report and/or the Q Visit?
• Is there anything you draw from these ideas (or from the Q Visit) that you could apply in your local setting?
• You’ve heard about/seen the report, what should happen next?

The highlights can be found on the Storify we made of the chat or if you want to view all the tweets, search Twitter for #Qvisits