What is the Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative?
The QI Learning Collaborative was a year-long collaborative specifically focused on supporting physicians in the Unified Medical Group (UMG) in the Prince-Albert Shellbrook area.
The Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative was based on IHI’s Breakthrough Series Collaborative methodology, which brings together teams from clinical practices over a short-term period to see improvement in a focused topic area. In the case of the Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative, the teams focused on improving access to care in the community, as well as improving elements within each team’s clinic environment so patients and families will have improved access and continuity of care.
Who is involved in the Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative?
The initiative was a collaborative effort sponsored by the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA). The Health Quality Council provided training and coaching to support UMG physicians and their clinic staff in applying quality improvement tools and methods. Through this initiative, HQC also worked with the Ministry of Health, the Saskatchewan Health Authority and patient partners.
What is a Collaborative?
A Collaborative is an improvement methodology or learn-by-doing approach to quality improvement. A Collaborative is a focused effort, over a focused period of time, across multiple teams to multiply the learning and improvement. It brings together practitioners from various disciplines and multiple sites to learn and share ideas on improving their practices, based on evidence-based research. Collaboratives involve a combination of theory and hands-on practice that help participants work to address challenges in their work environments while also building capacity for quality improvement methodology. Collaboratives have been around since the 1980s and are used to target complex, large-scale changes across a variety of organizations across the world.
While there are many variations of a Collaborative approach, typically they all share the same key elements: shared goals, shared measures and shared learning.
Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative contact
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