Nine Queensland Health staff sponsored by the Clinical Excellence Division are part of the latest group of Australian healthcare professionals to complete the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Improvement Advisor training. The group were part of a tri-state collaboration with New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and completed their final course workshop in June.
IHI is an independent, not-for-profit organisation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts with international recognition for their educational programs in improvement science. They have been working to improve the health of individuals and communities for more than 25 years.
It is the first time IHI has provided their renowned training program in Australia and follows a concerted effort by Dr John Wakefield, Deputy Director-General Clinical Excellence Division, and his counterparts in other jurisdictions to arrange for IHI to come to Australia.
The Improvement Advisor course is designed to help identify, plan and execute improvement projects that will affect change across the health system. Participants will now continue their work on the improvement project they designed as part of the coursework, and will come together again in the coming months to evaluate its impact.
Dr Wakefield said "the IHI methodology of healthcare improvement is internationally renowned and training is not normally accessible to people outside of the US, so it presented an incredible opportunity to provide our staff with the tools to drive cultural and system change in their work areas, and the realisation that simply doing their job isn’t enough. They have to become systems thinkers, always finding ways to improve their services. It’s a continuous improvement approach that we want to foster in everyone."
To help foster this culture, and in recognition of the need for a collaborative approach to healthcare improvement, CED provided funding for both departmental and hospital and health service staff to complete the training.
PICTURED: IHI trainers Jane Taylor and Richard Scoville
