Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety - Harvard University

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We all agree that quality is important – but what is it? How do we define it? How do we measure it? And most importantly, how might we make it better? In this course, you will learn:

• The importance of focusing on quality for improving population health
• A framework for understanding healthcare quality
• Approaches to quality measurement
• The role of information and communication technology in quality improvement
• Tools and contextual knowledge for quality improvement

The course is designed for those who care about health and healthcare and wish to learn more about how to measure and improve care – for themselves, for their institutions, or for their countries. Each session will be interactive – and provide concrete tools that students can use. We will empower you to raise questions, have concrete solutions, and promote change.

We have assembled some of the leading thinkers from around the globe – not only people who are experts – but people with real, hands-on experiences running organizations, hospitals, and ministries of health. Beyond the formal learning, there are other important benefits of taking the course. Mid-way through, we will select a small number of students’ projects and have video conferences, led by faculty, that will provide expert advice on how students might tackle their real-life healthcare quality problems.

At the end of the course, through peer and faculty review, three of the best essays from the course will be published in the BMJ Quality and Safety Journal, arguably the most influential quality and safety journal in the world.

So join us – whether you are a physician, nurse, or other healthcare provider, if you are a student of medicine, public health, or health policy, or a patient who just cares about getting good care – this course is for you.