Overview
A collaborative is a learning programme involving multiple multidisciplinary teams from different hospitals or different departments within one hospital who are supported by expert faculty to redesign a current process or implement a new process using QI methods.
The focus of a QI collaborative programme is codesigned with healthcare leaders and coproduced to address priority healthcare areas such as patient safety, medicine safety, person centredness, or to support implementation of standardised processes or guidelines.
A collaborative is based on a focused topic to implement change. While achieving this change, the participants will learn how to:
- develop and test a programme theory to improve healthcare
- implement and iterate improvement
- work together to effect change
- measure change
Previous collaboratives have seen national improvements in pressure ulcers rates, stroke care, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease care, community healthcare and in patient safety through the Situation Awareness For Everyone programme.
The benefits seen from the Irish National COPD Collaborative include:
- Improved timely initiation of acute clinical interventions
- Reduced inappropriate admissions and readmissions
- Shorter length of stay
- Improved patient experience
- Greater integration of care into the community