Healthcare Quality Improvement Fundamentals Training Course

Course overview

Healthcare services are expected to improve safety, timeliness, patient experience and operational flow while managing constrained staffing, demand and regulatory scrutiny. Yet improvement efforts often stall because teams cannot define a measurable problem, distinguish common variation from a true performance shift, or test changes without disrupting care delivery. This course gives participants a disciplined way to turn incidents, complaints, audit findings and performance gaps into evidence-based improvement work.

Participants learn to frame quality problems using an aim statement, map patient and service-user pathways, establish baseline measures, and select outcome, process and balancing measures. They apply the IHI Model for Improvement, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, root cause analysis, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Pareto analysis and run-chart interpretation. The programme also addresses clinical governance, patient safety, data quality, human factors, stakeholder engagement and the practical reporting needed to sustain a change beyond a pilot.

Instructor-led teaching is combined with healthcare cases involving delayed discharge, medication safety, missed appointments and infection-prevention performance. Participants work with sample datasets in Microsoft Excel and Minitab, create process maps and driver diagrams, and practise presenting improvement evidence to a quality committee. Each participant leaves with a structured Quality Improvement Project Pack: a defined problem statement, baseline measurement plan, process map, driver diagram, PDSA test plan, risk assessment and implementation roadmap tailored to their own service area.

The course is suited to healthcare and social care professionals who contribute to service improvement but need a robust, practical method before leading or supporting a formal QI project. It is particularly valuable where teams need to move from retrospective assurance reporting to tested, measurable improvement.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Define a healthcare quality problem using a scoped aim statement, operational definitions and a project charter
• Map a patient or service-user journey using SIPOC and swimlane process-mapping techniques
• Construct outcome, process and balancing measures with clear numerator, denominator and data-source definitions
• Analyse baseline performance using Pareto charts, run charts and basic statistical process control rules
• Apply the IHI Model for Improvement to design and document Plan-Do-Study-Act test cycles
• Conduct a root cause analysis using fishbone diagrams, five-whys questioning and contributory-factor review
• Prioritise patient-safety and service risks using a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis scoring worksheet
• Produce a Quality Improvement Project Pack containing a driver diagram, measurement plan, PDSA plan and sustainment actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Quality Improvement Officers — who support improvement projects and need a consistent method for measuring change
• Clinical Governance Managers — who must convert incidents, audit findings and risk themes into improvement action
• Ward Managers and Department Managers — who lead frontline teams responsible for safety, flow and patient experience
• Nurses and Allied Health Professionals — who identify care-delivery problems and want to lead practical local changes
• Healthcare Operations Managers — who need to reduce avoidable delays, variation and rework across service pathways
• Social Care Service Managers — who need to improve safeguarding, responsiveness and service-user outcomes using evidence

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience of working in a healthcare or social care setting and a working understanding of their local service pathway, performance concerns or patient-safety priorities. Familiarity with basic percentages, rates and spreadsheet data is useful, as participants will review simple datasets and charts in Microsoft Excel; advanced statistics are not assumed. Participants should ideally bring a real improvement opportunity from their area, although a supplied case can be used. No prior formal QI qualification, Lean certification, Minitab experience or clinical specialist knowledge is required.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led briefings followed by structured application to realistic healthcare improvement cases. Participants build a process map for a delayed-care pathway, define measures from sample service data, produce Pareto and run charts in Microsoft Excel or Minitab, and test changes through PDSA scenarios. Facilitated group reviews simulate the challenge of presenting to a clinical governance committee, including questions on safety, balancing measures and feasibility. Each day includes time to apply the method to an individual workplace issue, culminating in a reviewed Quality Improvement Project Pack and 90-day action plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Quality improvement foundations and problem definition

• Healthcare quality dimensions: safety, effectiveness, patient-centredness, timeliness, efficiency and equity
• Clinical governance, assurance and quality improvement distinctions
• The IHI Model for Improvement and the three guiding questions
• Writing SMART aim statements with scope, population and timescale
• Project charters, problem statements and stakeholder boundaries
• SIPOC diagrams for healthcare and social care service pathways
• Swimlane process mapping and identification of hand-off failures

Workshop: Participants map a delayed-discharge or missed-appointment pathway and produce a scoped problem statement, SIPOC diagram and draft project charter.

Day 2: Measurement, data quality and performance analysis

• Outcome, process and balancing measures for healthcare improvement
• Operational definitions, numerators, denominators and inclusion criteria
• Data-collection plans and sampling approaches for frontline teams
• Data quality checks: completeness, accuracy, timeliness and consistency
• Pareto analysis of incidents, complaints and delay reasons
• Run charts, median lines and rules for identifying non-random variation
• Introduction to statistical process control charts and special-cause signals

Workshop: Using a supplied outpatient-flow dataset, participants create a measurement plan, Pareto chart and annotated run chart to identify a priority improvement opportunity.

Day 3: Diagnosing causes and managing improvement risk

• Root cause analysis versus blame-focused incident review
• Fishbone diagrams using people, process, equipment, environment and policy categories
• Five-whys questioning and verification of causal assumptions
• Contributory factors, human factors and work-as-done observation
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis process steps
• Severity, occurrence and detectability scoring in FMEA
• Prioritisation matrices for selecting feasible improvement interventions

Workshop: Teams conduct an FMEA on a medication-reconciliation or safeguarding-referral process and produce a ranked risk-control action list.

Day 4: Testing and implementing service changes

• Driver diagrams linking aims, primary drivers, secondary drivers and change ideas
• Generating change ideas from evidence, frontline insight and patient feedback
• Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle design at small scale
• Prediction statements and learning questions for PDSA tests
• Balancing measures and unintended-consequence monitoring
• Stakeholder analysis and engagement across clinical, operational and patient groups
• Implementation planning, communication plans and escalation routes

Workshop: Participants build a driver diagram and a sequenced PDSA test plan for their selected service-improvement challenge.

Day 5: Sustaining improvement and presenting the case for change

• Interpreting post-change data against baseline and project aims
• Standard work, visual management and control plans
• Embedding revised practice into induction, supervision and audit routines
• Sustainability planning and ownership after project closure
• Quality improvement reporting for clinical governance committees
• Communicating improvement evidence to senior leaders and frontline teams
• ISO 7101:2023 and ISO 9001:2015 links to quality-management systems

Workshop: Participants finalise and present their Quality Improvement Project Pack, receiving facilitator and peer feedback on measures, risks, PDSA tests and 90-day actions.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Minitab Statistical Software, ISO 7101:2023 Healthcare organization management — Management systems for quality in healthcare organizations, ISO 9001:2015 Quality management systems — Requirements

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions