Global healthcare professionals join debate on quality improvement
Rashad Massoud speaking at the Salzburg Global SeminarWelcoming over 60 international healthcare professionals from more than 35 countries, Dr. M. Rashad Massoud expressed his excitement at the “wonderful journey” the participants would take over the next six days at Schloss Leopoldskron for the Salzburg Global Seminar session ‘Health and Healthcare Series IV: Making Health Care Better in Low and Middle Income Economies: What are the next steps and how do we get there?’The session has been two years in the making, and will follow on from previous sessions’ discussions to debate the progress made so far in meeting such targets as the Millennium Development Goals and the role of quality improvement in meeting such public health targets.Whilst improvements in health care have clearly been made in the past number of years, this progress has since “plateaued”, making it necessary for health care professionals to address the issues and challenges that still lie ahead.Joining the “crucially important meeting” via a pre-recorded video, Don Berwick, former president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, USA, highlighted the great opportunity such a global gathering of healthcare experts would experience over the coming week.“In developed healthcare systems in the Western developed world, we have a crust to drill through,” he said.“We have an existing legacy production system that for complex reasons has not been orientated around those six aims [safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency and equity] for the continual improvement of performance as its primary driver…“I have the feeling that low and middle income countries have a thinner crust. There’s more opportunity there because in some senses you’re building on a relatively less developed platform of management and process thinking. The opportunity in lower and middle income countries is to do it right the first time. “I think the potential is enormous.”The Salzburg Statement: How to Improve Health in Low and Middle Income Economies, was produced at the end of the week-long intensive discussions.Click here to read Louise Hallman's daily newsletters for the session
