Pathway to ‘sustained’ Excellence – learning from improvement sustainability and quality improvement

Ms Sarah Moon¹, Ms Jo Lawton¹

¹Department Of Health Tasmania, Launceston, Australia

Embedding large-scale change, such as Pathway to Excellence®, into ‘practice as usual’ is a shared challenge among hospitals in Australia and beyond. It is well known that successful change requires concerted efforts from all levels of the organisation. However, many have encountered the “improvement evaporation effect”, a phenomenon in which hard-earned initial gains are not maintained. To design and support improvement sustainability, context-driven and locally empowered strategies are vital.

This presentation will introduce the learnings from the latest evidence of improvement sustainability and a quality-improvement approach that may be utilised to support embedding Pathway to Excellence® in the Tasmanian context. The latest evidence relates to the empirically evaluated factors from 55 hospitals world-wide for sustained improvement in safety and quality through hospital-wide quality initiatives. A framework for improvement sustainability, developed based on the identified factors, will be introduced. A quality-improvement approach will be demonstrated for addressing gaps and opportunities for improvement toward optimising the local integration of change.

Synthesising the lessons learned from research and practice, the presenters will offer building blocks to design and sustain nursing and midwifery excellence in Tasmania.

Biography:

Jo Lawton MN, RN Nursing Director Quality Improvement, Statewide Quality and Patient Safety Service, CQRA

Jo has worked in Quality and Safety roles since 2002, both in NSW and Tasmania. Formerly working in the North and THS in Quality and Patient Safety roles, Jo has more recently taken a lead in building the organisational awareness and capability in Quality Improvement as a method for positive change. Jo has a passion for improvement thinking and promoting effective change approaches to staff working in both front facing and support roles to improve patient outcomes, care systems and staff professional development.

Sarah is a Clinical Nurse Consultant for Quality and Patient Safety in the Department of Health and PhD Candidate in the Australian Institute of Health Service Management within the University of Tasmania. Sarah’s work involves communicating patient safety and quality data with clinicians and managers, and supporting them with data and evidence based improvement. With her passion for making positive and evidence-based change, Sarah’s doctoral study focuses on sustaining improvement from large-scale change in healthcare settings. Sarah’s study has been published in reputable journals and presented in local and international conferences.