Explore new and better ways of organising health and social care services, to improve quality, with this free online course. Why is quality improvement in health and social care systems so difficult? Why is it so challenging to bring in new and better ways of organising health and social care services? Many reasons have been put forward: lack of money; lack of knowledge about either the actual quality of care delivered, or resistance to making changes to long-established ways of working; excessive and sometimes misunderstood regulations; and professional opinions and interests that are hard to influence when systems are working at or beyond capacity.
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This course suggests that the main reason is complexity. Health and social care systems are inherently complex, with many interconnected activities and processes, and thus difficult to measure, analyse, change and improve.
What topics will you cover?
- Complexity and quality improvement in health and social care
- Quality improvement theories: The Model for Improvement, an introduction to LEAN, an introduction to microsystems
- Engagement and co-production with patients and families as partners
- Evaluating quality improvement: the lens of profound knowledge, measuring for improvement
- Systems modelling and quality improvement: modelling for demand and capacity problems and computer simulation modelling
- Making the case for quality improvement with your team, your leaders and more widely to your community.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...
- Identify what quality and process improvement entails, especially in a health and social care setting
- Explain how quality improvement can lead to better outcomes for staff and organisations, including customers and/or patients
- Gain confidence to start and lead a quality improvement project within your organisation
- Identify how to access additional support, and get others to join with you in making improvements
- Discuss how quality improvement can help you deal with complexity in organisational systems and identify how to improve key areas without worsening others
- Explore how systems modelling and analytics techniques support quality improvement initiatives
