Quality Improvement
Across the world, more people die from poor quality healthcare than they do from a lack of access to healthcare. THET is working to support Health Partnerships integrate Quality Improvement tools and methodologies within their work.
Each year, between 5.7 and 8.4 million people are dying due to poor quality care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), counting for up to 15 percent of overall deaths in these countries.
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) place quality as a central universal health coverage (UHC) consideration. SDG target 3.8 calls on countries to achieve UHC, including financial risk protection alongside access to quality essential health care services. THET is working to achieve this by supporting Health Partnerships to advance health service improvement in countries through collaboration, co-development and the sharing of knowledge to enhance quality.
Health Partnerships are currently applying quality improvement (QI) tools to improve quality of health care across the world. Many different methods are used based on the specificities of the partnership. These include a range of approaches such as broad clinical governance mechanisms; peer review and clinical audit; individual feedback; supervision and training; clinical decision support tools based on guidelines; multidisciplinary learning, collaborative and team-based improvement cycles. The significant experience that already exists can inform other partnerships.
Each year
5.7-8.4 million people
die due to poor quality healthcare
In collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), THET is supporting Health Partnerships to improve quality of care and to share knowledge to ensure the quality of health services being delivered in LMICs.
The aim of this work is to enhance our knowledge of the role Health Partnerships play in improving the quality of health services, learn from the frontline about the experience of implementing QI and to increase awareness of the technical resources available from WHO on Twinning Partnerships for Improvement.
THET-WHO Webinar: Twinning Partnerships for Improvement – Quality Improvement
THET opened a call for Health Partnerships to share examples of quality improvement tools, resources or training methods to explore how quality interventions are leading to measurable improvement in the quality of processes or health service outcomes in LMICs.
In collaboration with the WHO, we will be hosting a training webinar to explore the findings from the call and learn from real examples of how healthcare practitioners are utilising quality improvement methodologies to improve practice. The webinar will also provide an opportunity to place this learning within the context of the work of the WHO on twinning partnerships for improvement.
Webinar update: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify across the world, THET, together with the WHO, have decided to postpone the Twinning Partnerships for Improvement – Quality Improvement webinar scheduled on 25 March 2020. While we regret this postponement, we recognise that many of those in our audience are attending to other urgent matters during this extraordinary time.
The topic of quality improvement is extremely important, so we look forward to announcing a new date and time in the weeks to come. In the immediate term, we are pleased to share insights from the webinar panellists below.
