Quality Improvement

Inspire through Quality Improvement (QI) and Patient Safety has been developed using many of the same principles of the Inspire through Clinical Teaching and Clinical leadership courses. This project is still being developed, but for our most recent pilot, rather than delivering a 4-day course we have worked with our partners in Zambia to help build a QI community with an associated “masterclass” course.

In developing a QI community, we have united motivated and dedicated health care professionals, all with the primary goal of improving standards of care. Our goal is that this community will allow for networking, peer support and scalability of projects. The community has been designed to be easily accessible, locally funded and self-sustainable.

The community is supported by the technical skills learnt in a series of “masterclasses” taught over four weeks. The masterclasses takes a group of 16 participants through 4 Plan-Do-Act-Study (PDSA) cycles under direct supervision. By actively taking them through the process, they learn skills through practical application. In addition, they will learn how to overcome barriers, work within a multi-disciplinary team and how to perform scientific analysis of their results.

This pilot was initially designed by two senior anaesthetic registrars (Dr Sarah El-Sheikha and Dr Carrick Allison) under the supervision of Professor Lynch (Deputy Medical Director, South East of England and Professor in the South East Leadership school). This project has now been handed over to Zambian health care professionals. It is being led by Dr Amon Ngongola, Dr Patricia Shinondo (Paediatric surgeons, University Teaching Hospital) and Elizabeth Kamanga (pharmacist, University Teaching Hospital).For further information about the project please review our website http://qizambia.weebly.com or contact us via qizambia@gmail.com