Improving the Quality of Care in Care Homes Using the Quality Improvement Collaborative Approach: Lessons Learnt from Six Projects Conducted in the UK and The Netherlands.

The Breakthrough Series Quality Improvement Collaborative (QIC) initiative is a well-developed and widely used approach, but most of what we know about it has come from healthcare settings. In this article, those leading QICs to improve care in care homes provide detailed accounts of six QICs and share their learning of applying the QIC approach in the care home sector. Overall, five care home-specific lessons were learnt: (i) plan for the resources needed to support collaborative teams with collecting, processing, and interpreting data; (ii) create encouraging and safe working environments to help collaborative team members feel valued; (iii) recruit collaborative teams, QIC leads, and facilitators who have established relationships with care homes; (iv) regularly check project ideas are aligned with team members' job roles, responsibilities, and priorities; and (v) work flexibly and accept that planned activities may need adapting as the project progresses.

Simulation in medical education.

Studies in cognitive psychology inform us that the recall of information and its application are best when it is taught and rehearsed in environments similar to workplace. The healthcare professions are heavily task- and performance-based where non-technical skills, decision making and clinical reasoning are important alongside integrity, empathy and compassion. Most of these attributes are difficult to teach and assess in the traditional classrooms.