“Board members ought to be suitably skilled to ask the right questions about quality and patient safety and hold managers accountable. They should request reports with quality and safety matrix and, in addition, request narrative reports on issues related to harm to patients, staff members and other users,” says Dr Brenda Kubheka, Managing Director of Health IQ Consulting.

She will be speaking on the subject of quality management and patient safety, at this month’s Africa Health Conference at Gallagher Estate.

“Organisational leadership must be transformational to foster a shared sense of purpose, build significant social capital, and adopt a leadership style fostering cooperation. Healthcare is a “team sport”; everyone, including patients and their families, has a significant role to play,” she explains.

Healthcare quality management is about promise-keeping and, therefore, not an elective. It is critical for building trust inside and outside the organisation. Internally, it rallies the management teams to commit to quality improvement and cultivating a positive patient safety culture.

“To achieve relevant, effective, and sustainable improvement, healthcare organisations should invest in patient safety and implementation research to build consensus around themes identified for improvement. Measurements assist in determining the baseline and therefore enable monitoring of progress and effectiveness of interventions,” says Dr Kubheka.