30 June 2021
HSCQI congratulated all the teams who were shortlisted and announced the winners of the prestigious HSCQI Quality Improvement Awards 2020 in a virtual celebration event held on 24 June. In the Integrating Care across boundaries category, teams demonstrated involvement of service users and carers, working across boundaries and developing multidisciplinary pathways in their QI projects, not to mention their passion for QI which was evident throughout. The winner ‘NEMO Delayed Discharge Process’ picked up the award for this ground breaking project in the Belfast Trust.
This QI Project was developed by a team lead by Mary O’Brien, who set out to develop new pathways of care to reduce the number or delayed discharges in the Acute Mental Health Inpatient Centre (AMHIC). The team developed an innovative pathway for new community placements at Woodstock Bank and standardised the pathways for patients at high risk. This ultimately has improved patient experience.
Commenting on receiving the award, Mary O’Brien said,
“On behalf of AMHIC and Woodstock Bank (step down facility from AMHIC) we are ecstatic to have won the award in the category of Integrating Care across Boundaries. Our project was patient/service user and carer focused and was about improving flow in, through and out of acute psychiatric inpatient care as we recognise that the patient / Service user lives in community but only goes to inpatient care for treatment so it is crucial that they are not delayed in their discharge. We really have the QI bug and are very proud to have won this award and look forward to putting our next projects forward next time round.”
This pioneering work from the Belfast Trust team is still on-going with sustainability and spread at the forefront. The team are working relentlessly to ensure the changes implemented thus far are sustained while the project is being scaled across Northern Ireland by the Health and Social Care Board.
Dr Aideen Keaney, Director of HCSQI who recently had the opportunity to meet with the award winning team commented:
“These improvement initiatives also illustrate how staff from across our Health and Social Care system are now applying their QI expertise to their work and that this is occurring across many parts of the system. I want to thank everyone who entered. All the finalists and all the category winners deserve our collective congratulations for the success of their improvement initiatives.”
The NEMO Delayed Discharge Process’ team showcased their project at the virtual ceremony. The presentation was highly informative and captured the hard work and dedication of the team. The presentation is now available for your viewing via https://bit.ly/3ye3weZ.
We encourage you to show your support and help celebrate the excellent QI work unfolding throughout the HSC Trust by sharing the video with your organisation colleagues and on Twitter, tagging @HSCQI.
Further details on the awards and other QI information can be found on the HSCQI website. Quality Improvement & Innovation – Sharing best practice across Health & Social Care in Northern Ireland (hscni.net)
Please follow @HSCQI on Twitter also to keep connected with QI activity across the region.