Quality Academy

The Quality Academy is a professional development program delivered over six months. Participants attend five in-person residency sessions and work on a quality project within their organizations. Participants receive support during the program through webinars and from an assigned Faculty Mentor.

An Overview of the Quality Academy

Registration for Quality Academy cohort 7, beginning in September 2013, is now open.

Click below to download the Cohort 7:

Brochure
Application Form
Executive Sponsor Form

Aim

The aim of the Quality Academy is to provide participants with the capability to effectively lead quality and safety initiatives, including teaching and advising others in the process of improving health care quality.

Participants build their knowledge, skills and confidence around the core components of quality improvement, including:

Process and systems thinking;
Personal and organizational development;
Involving patients, users, carers, staff and the public;
Making improvement a habit: initiating, sustaining and spreading change;
Delivering on cost and quality;
Problem solving/internal consultancy skills; and
Innovation for improvement.¹

Participants will also demonstrate acquired knowledge through the design, implementation and evaluation of an improvement project related to the mission, vision and values of their organizations.

Curriculum Overview

The Quality Academy is built upon the learning and experience from both the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement as well as Intermountain Healthcare’s Advanced Training Program. Participants are given opportunities to develop skills and knowledge of various quality improvement tools and methods; they also develop critical thinking skills to examine how to strategically use opportunities and tools to improve the quality of care.

Key areas addressed throughout the curriculum include:

Quality and Safety Culture
Model for Improvement
Lean
Positive Deviance
Statistical Process Control
Measurement Strategies for Quality Improvement
Demand and Capacity Analysis
Human Factors
Resilience and Reliability Science
Understanding and Reducing Variation
Complexity and Systems Process/Theory
Spread and Sustainability
Social Movement and Large-Scale Change
Culture of Innovation and Thinking Differently

Teamwork and Communication
Strategies for Engaging Patients and Families
Group Facilitation, Conflict Resolution and Leadership Skills
Coaching and Mentoring for Improvement Skills
Cost and Quality Tools (ROI, Business Case, Allocative Efficiency)
Management and Prevention of Adverse Events
Disclosure of Harm
Root Cause/Health Systems Safety Analysis
Failure Modes Effects Analysis
Successes in High Performing Healthcare Systems

Bevan, H. How can we build skills to transform the healthcare system? Journal of Research in Nursing first published on January 22, 2010 as doi:10.1177/1744987109357812.