Six internationally-recognized patient safety research and improvement experts, including Don Berwick, Charles Vincent and René Amalberti, offer a 5-step plan for leveraging quality improvement and patient safety teams to boost organizations’ ability to respond and retool in the rapidly-changing patient care environment brought on by the pandemic.

1. Strengthen the system by assessing readiness, gathering evidence, setting up training, promoting staff safety and bolstering peer support.
2. Engage with citizens, patients and their families so that the solutions are jointly achieved and owned by both the providers and the people who receive care and in particular the citizens who are required to undertake preventive interventions.
3. Work to improve care through actions such as the separation of flows, flash workshops on teamwork and the development of clinical decision support.
4. Reduce harm by proactively managing risk to both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.
5. Boost and expand the learning system to capture improvement opportunities, adjust very rapidly and develop resilience.

>> Read their article in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care for advice on putting these principles into action.