Head, Heart & Minds: A summary of ISQua's 35th annual conference (2018)

Summary

Change is at the heart of quality improvement in healthcare. As the needs of populations continually fluctuate, healthcare must evolve to reflect and serve those needs. The overarching theme of the 2018 ISQua conference, hosted in Kuala Lumpur, was ‘Heads, hearts and hands weaving the fabric of quality and safety’, which led many speakers to examine change in quality and safety improvement through the lens of these three central elements. Collectively, the conference presentations formed a picture of the global landscape of quality and safety in healthcare and offered many valuable examples of innovation that can facilitate sustainable change.

Identifying areas for transformation and implementing change can be relatively straightforward, but lasting change is much more challenging to realise. This topic was widely discussed, with many speakers sharing their experiences and learning on embedding lasting change through organisational culture. It is evident that investing time and resources to engage those on the frontline of healthcare delivery can have a huge impact on quality improvement. 

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