Leading Improvement in the Quality of Health Care for Community Populations
Description:
Primary and community health is the foundation of health care in our system. Yet measurements of performance in the Canadian system show that there is room for improvement. Health care providers are primarily motivated in improving care but often lack the core skills in quality improvement. Furthermore they have not been trained in leading or managing the interprofessional teams that are increasingly charged with improving care delivery.
This course fills two key niches – developing skills in quality improvement, and the management and leadership of interprofessional QI teams.
This is a structured learning, modular course. The course is delivered through readings and seminars. Demonstration of learning effectiveness will be through the leadership of a project in community-based quality improvement.
The course focuses on the delivery of health care by teams - dealing with the identification, stratification, and improvement of team-based structures and processes in the care of defined populations.
Objectives:
Vision:
Improving community health care quality through leadership, accountability, performance, and quality improvement.
Mission:
This curriculum will prepare primary and community health care providers for practice in an environment of continuous quality improvement and accountability through:
Utilizing reflective practice to identify opportunities for improvement in the specific context of their practice environments,
Learning the knowledge and skills of continuous quality improvement and applying them to a project practicum, and
Application of the concepts of leadership to support engagement of colleagues/interprofessional care teams in quality improvement efforts.
Format:
This is a blended course of both asynchronous online activities and 7 synchronous online class meetings.
This course will offer an application-focused introduction to quality improvement. The course is designed on a platform of “learning with, and from, course colleagues” that includes in-class interactivity focused on reflection and exploring awareness of each student’s clinical context in relation to improvement.
All instruction materials, specifically readings and slide decks, will be shared before each class. Class time will focus on introduction and review of content, and include activities and exercises to expand on the learning that will be achieved with application of the concepts.
