Visit to Healthcare Improvement Scotland – Sustaining improvement through Quality Management Systems

For many improvers – and Q community members – the model for improvement (MFI) is the ‘go to’ improvement method. Due to MFI projects not being linked to organisational strategy, considering the needs of service users (Quality Planning) or not designing systems to manage performance on an ongoing basis (Quality Control) from the outset, improvers often report deteriorating performance once the original project is complete. Q members attending this visit to Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) had the opportunity to learn to extend their repertoire in these areas and increase chances of delivering long term improvements.

Why Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)?

HIS is at the forefront of Quality Improvement in Scotland, supporting and linking in with countless health organisations across the country. With close links to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and a clear mission to help organisations increase the quality of healthcare delivery, HIS is a respected thought leader in the field of improvement.

What you’ll learn

Q members learnt about alternative approaches to Quality Assurance from HIS as well as representatives from selected partner organisations, who will share their experiences of introducing new ways of working.

Traditionally, Quality Assurance approaches lead to organisations ‘getting their house in order’ prior to a visit from an external regulator. A quality management system puts the power in the hands of those who deliver the service to understand the variations in quality within their own service, responding intelligently to changes in the quality of delivery within their own teams and responding in a rapid (daily, weekly) time frame.

As a result, teams are in control of their own data, their own management, and their own quality. HIS’s partner organisations have taken this one stage further, and are putting responsibility for the financial management (called value management, within the Quality Management System) with the front line teams, so they can see and control the financial implications of their own actions, in a real-time way.

Members also explored other enablers of the quality management systems (e.g. Learning Systems) – participants had the choice of attending sessions focused on the areas of the Quality Management System they were most interested in.

Aims and objectives

The aim of this visit was to develop members’ ability to sustain improvements, through learning from a range of approaches that HIS use, with a focus on a Quality Management System.

By the end of the day members:

Understood the range and scope of the work that HIS leads and works in partnership with others to deliver.
Are confident in the application of QMS in their own organisations, identifying both the opportunities and potential challenges.
Can share learning and progress on HIS’s work to develop a Quality Management System approach.

Resources (Members only)