Between the 5th and 8th April a team from the School of Health and Social Care and colleagues from the East Midlands ambulance service travelled to Amsterdam for the 16th Annual International forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. Professor Niro Siriwardena and Fiona Togher displayed their poster “A case study approach to understand how quality improvement methods led to improvements in primary care for Insomnia” along with around 500 other posters from over 60 countries.
Niro and Fiona presenting on the REST project
The large and varied programme of sessions on offer were based around the theme of ‘better health, safer care, lower costs’ and considered how practically as academics and health care professionals these issues could realistically be addressed.
The representation at the conference from so many different counties was excellent and enabled the delegates to gain a much better understanding of some of the issues that other countries face in improving quality of health care as well as the opportunity to learn from others about methods and techniques that they may not previously have considered.
The key note speeches were outstanding; one of the best that was given was by a lady called Kathy Torpie; a patient representative and psychologist who provided a humbling account of the patient experience in hospital following horrific injuries in a car crash. Kathy’s speech reminded the audience of why they were really at the conference in the first place: to improve patient care and experience.
The conference was thoroughly enjoyable, inspiring and generated many ideas for the attendees to mull over and I think it is fair to say that the team would very much like to attend next years conference in Paris!
Amsterdam in spring