Exchange of Patient Safety and Quality of Care Good Practices

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OVERVIEW

“To help Member States share best practices and find solutions to these and other common public health challenges, the European Commission has established the concept of Joint Actions”, articulates the Commission in its 2013 “EU support for key public health initiatives 2008-2011 Joint Actions” brochure.

In April 2013, the European Union Network for Patient Safety and Quality of Care, PaSQ Joint Action has entered into its second year, through coordination of Haute Autorité de Santé  (French National Authority for Health), and activities led by Work Packages Leaders from Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Slovakia and Spain.

 This three-year project (2012-2015), on raising the bar of Patient Safety and Quality of Care through sharing of good practices
across all European Member States, is co-funded and supported by the European Commission within the Public Health Programme.The main outcome of the Joint Action will be the consolidation of the permanent network for Patient Safety and Quality of Care in the European Union. The Commissioner for Health has announced the intention of the European Commission to support its sustainability after the PaSQ Joint Action.

 

PARTNERS

Facing the same challenge of improving the Quality of Care in these recessionary times, and one year experience into this Project, has demonstrated the importance of having all involved gathered around this activity.

This has been achieved through the teamwork of PaSQ Partners, that is: Associated Partners, Collaborating Partners and PaSQ National Contact Points from 27 European Member States plus Norway and Croatia, as well as 11 European Stakeholders, and 4 International Organisations.

In accordance with this approach, during the 2nd Coordination Meeting in Berlin (Germany) on January 14-15th 2013, the following

 set of Safe Clinical Practices for Patient Safety has been selected, further to literature review and the choice of PaSQ National Contact Points: WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, Medication Reconciliation, Multimodal intervention to increase hand hygiene compliance, and Paediatric Early Warning Scores.

PaSQ National Contact Points of the 16 participating European Member States have chosen among these Safe Clinical Practices for Patient Safety the most suitable ones for their national environment. Their implementation will take place starting on July 01st 2013, with funding and support from the PaSQ Joint Action.

PROGRESS WITH WORK

In line with Project’s objective of contributing to Patient Safety and good Quality of Care, the respective PaSQ Work Packages have focused their activities in the last six months on the creation and launch of a series of online surveys, as well as literature review performed by experts, with the common goal to collect data on Good Healthcare Practices.

The crucial role in this work is played by the network of PaSQ National Contact Points in order to achieve the aim of this Joint

 Action: to share information, knowledge and implementation of good practices; and consequently, to make progress together.The second round of Data collection continues through Patient Safety Practices Exchange Survey – WP4, and Good Organisational Practices Exchange Survey – WP6. Should you be interested to share your good practice by filling in a survey, please contact your PaSQ National Contact Point 

 

 WIKI INTERACTIVE PLATFORM
  
Patient Safety and Quality of Care Good Practices have been gathered through online surveys. The first round of data collection at clinical (Patient Safety Practices – PSPs) and system (Good Organisational Practices – GOPs) level has been completed on March 15th 2013, and was followed by the PaSQ National Contact Points’ review. So far, more than 350 clinical examples to improve Patient Safety, and more than 120 organisational cases for quality improvement have been amassed.

The use of collected Good Practices is two-folded:

  • They represent the basis for the forthcoming PaSQ Exchange Mechanisms, meaning face-to-face meetings, and learning resources for healthcare workers across Europe, in order to share knowledge, skills and experience related to Patient Safety Good Clinical Practices, and Good Organisational Practices. It is a basic rule that, in order to be eligible as a PaSQ Exchange Mechanism, an event should address at least one reported Good Practice, and should involve at least two PaSQ Partners from two different European Member States. An example is the imminent June 17th 2013 PaSQ Exchange Event on the topic of hand hygiene in Vienna (Austria), whose aim is to give an
 overview of current national and international activities.

  • They are the core for PaSQ Database of Good Practices, from which PaSQ National Contact Points are able to select practices to be promoted within their own country, matching their needs and wishes in accordance with topics and Exchange Mechanisms they want to use for knowledge exchange, being funded and supported by the PaSQ Joint Action.

In line with that, the heart of the PaSQ Joint Action web site is Wiki, the Interactive Platform for display of all Good Practices and Exchange Mechanisms, presently accessible to PaSQ Network, and which will be available to public later in the Project period.

The Exchange Mechanisms are for the most part to be carried out from August 2013 to the end of 2014. The choice of practices will be based on their transferability level, to make sure that a practice is applicable, and useful in different environments.

Such an approach is reinforcing the driving force of this Project: mutual progress by exchanging information, sharing learning, and adapting it to a local need.

SUSTAINABILITY

The Commission recently expressed its willingness to support a future permanent network on Patient Safety and Quality of Care.

Based on PaSQ success and on European Member States needs, PaSQ Partners will

 make proposals regarding the objectives, planned activities, governance, organisation, structure and budget of the future permanent network.