Patient Gary O'Hanlon, from Southill, Limerick, shares a moment with, from left, John Hanafin, Chairman, Patients Council, UHL; Deirdre King de Montano, Business Manager, Office of the Chief Clinical Director, UL Hospitals Group; Suzanne Dunne, Head of Strategy, UL Hospitals Group; Dr Naro Imcha, C

Quality improvement conference at UHL

Over 200 delegates have attended the second annual UL Hospitals Group Clinical Audit and Quality Improvement Conference at University Hospital Limerick.
 
Attendees for the two-day event included healthcare professionals, health managers, academics and patients from across the Mid West and beyond.
 
Dr Philip Crowley, National Director, Quality Improvement Division, HSE delivered an overview of quality improvement in Ireland and commended the work being in the MidWest. Dr Crowley said it was indisputable that improved healthcare was a significant factor in the increasing longevity of the Irish population.
 
“An awful lot of the increase in life expectancy historically is of course explained by improved living conditions, nutrition and all the basics at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. But more recently some of the more incremental benefits have definitely been as a result of things that we have done in our health service. That includes things like our cardiovascular network of primary PCI centres including Limerick; very much improved cancer and stroke survival; and new models of care which are reducing length of stay in our hospitals which are now so much more efficient than they used to be; and doing more in smaller hospitals,” said Dr Crowley.
 
Dr Cathal O’Keeffe, Head of Clinical Risk, State Claims Agency, spoke to delegates about risk management and using national data to advance patient safety.
 
The State Claims Agency, Dr O’Keeffe said, had a unique perspective as the indemnifier of the HSE in claims of medical negligence.
 
“But we also have a clear interest in quality improvement and to a large extent the two are interconnected. Failures in quality of care are often the starting point for a process that may lead to litigation,” Dr O’Keeffe said.
 
Together with the HSE, the State Claims Agency manages the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and this is a key patient safety intelligence system with a huge amount of patient safety.
 
“This data is a terrific source of learning and, if we have a national view of patient safety incidents, we can extract very valuable learning from that and feed it back into the system,” said Dr O’Keeffe.
 
Other speakers at the conference included, Dr Cat Chatfield, Quality Improvement Editor, The BMJ; Dr Siobhan Gallagher, Consultant Paediatrician, Univeristy Hospital Limerick; Deirdre Burke, National Office of Clinical Audit; John Hanafin, Chairman, Patients Council, University Hospital Limerick; Prof Lars Ladfors University of Gothenburg, Sweden; Dr Pelle Gustafson, Chief Medical Officer, Swedish National Patient Insurance Company, Löf; Prof Roy Philip, Consultant Paediatrician & Neonatologist, UL Hospitals Group; Anna Burnhouse, Director of Quality Improvement, Northumbria Healthcare, NHS Foundation, and Helen Crisp, Editor-in-Chief, BMJ Open Quality.
 
There were in total 33 speakers at the two-day conference, in addition to 93 poster presentations, most of which detailed quality improvement initiatives undertaken by staff in UL Hospitals Group and the MidWest.
 
Dr Naro Imcha, Chair of the Quality Improvement Committee, UL Hospitals Group, said the annual conference aimed to raise awareness of quality improvement and involve all stakeholders in achieving better care.
 
“Two years ago, UL Hospitals Group formed the Quality Improvement Committee to support the aims of Sláintecare. A core principle underpinning the initiatives of this committee is ‘Engage, Embrace, Empower’.
 
“Quality improvement requires the cooperation, support, and input of all the stakeholders. Everyone’s engagement in this effort needs to be encouraged. Input from the staff, patients, media, government, and the community, must be sought, welcomed, and embraced. Every opinion is valued and must be critically evaluated. Solutions to our common challenges can only be generated through the creative abilities of empowered people. Our annual Quality Improvement Conference brings this principle to life and permeates it with our collective energy,” said Dr Imcha.