The Saskatchewan Health Care Quality Summit

The 2013 Saskatchewan Health Care Quality Summit was held last week in Regina, and we were there to present our recent report Which way to quality? and to demonstrate the Health Innovation Portal.

 

What Happened?

 

The Summit featured dynamic keynote speakers including Helen Bevan, Brent James and ePatient Dave. Helen Bevan launched the conference with a discussion of change and being an “organisational radical” that fosters innovation and improvement. Brent James talked about the importance of data, with a focus on cost in the quality improvement efforts that Intermountain Health has undertaken.  He stated, like W. Edwards Deming, that “cheaper is not always better, better is always cheaper.” ePatient Dave closed the Summit with a compelling and moving personal story of being diagnosed with kidney cancer, googling for his health, and being an active and engaged participant in his treatment planning.

The conference had over 600 attendees, an impressive 10% of whom were patients. The involvement of patients is starting to gain broader recognition with the Patients Included Badge, created by Lucien Engelen and his team, and introduced at the Summit by ePatient Dave.

What Did We Learn?

1. Building energy for change in the long term makes a difference in fueling high performance  
2.  Better care at lower cost is achievable with the appropriate structures and strategies.
3. Let patients help.  Patients are the most under-used members of the health care team and have a lot to offer in improving the health care system.
4. There are many strong efforts for improving health care quality in Saskatchewan, across Canada and beyond from which we can learn.

What Did We Do?

 

Health Council of Canada staff who attended the Summit were impressed by the quality of presentations, including the Know Your Status Project and the Surgical Patient Experience Project. We were also pleased to demonstrate the Health Innovation Portal to attendees with a focus on the innovative practices we have profiled under the theme, “System Level Quality Improvement.” People were drawn to our interactive iPad kiosks and were excited to try out and learn more about this web-based tool. Several conference attendees and presenters will also soon be submitting their innovative practices and programs to the portal, so stay tuned for updates.

 

 

What are we doing next?

Thanks again to everyone who came to visit the Health Council of Canada booth! If you want to provide your feedback on the Health Innovation Portal, please participate in our ongoing evaluation. Click here to fill out our quick survey.

 

Next up, we’ll be attending the Accreditation Canada Quality Conference2013: Sustaining Success! on May 9-10, so please drop by to try out the Health Innovation Portal.