Celebrating 30 Years of Collaborative Improvement
In June we held two very successful events in Sydney to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Health Roundtable. The first day the Health Roundtable Board hosted over 60 Chief and Health Service Executives to hear from four key international thought leaders in the health sector. The second day we hosted over 130 attendees at the annual Innovation showcase where members heard from two of the key speakers and then showcased and voted on 50 innovations from across ANZ.
Tobi Wilson, Chief Executive, South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, Board Chair and President, Health Roundtable, opened the day talking about the strengths of the Health Roundtable's 30 year collaborative for improvement and the recent improvements in our data platform and services for members - a key driver of its success he noted was the strength of the partnership with Beamtree.
Prof Ernst Kuipers, Vice President Research, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, generously spoke on both days discussing the future of healthcare needs to refocus and emphasised a shift toward care at home, prevention, and addressing social determinants to improve quality of life. He discussed how change is incremental, and we now have a convergence of knowledge across numerous sectors to accelerate improvements in healthcare. He discussed leveraging technology and highlighted the role of AI's evolution and the need for strategic implementation to enhance, not burden, healthcare teams. He challenged leaders to focus and invest in activities to address climate change as an essential strategy to improving the health and wellbeing of our populations.
Suzie Bailey, Director Leadership and Organisational Development, The Kings Fund, talked about the heart of improvement: people, relationships and social connectedness plus technical capabilities. Social Networks create the environment for improvement to have impact and sustain. Lots of evidence including NHS Staff Survey, Virginia Mason Institute. Model: Autonomy, Belonging and Contribution meets the needs for people at work to thrive.
Dr Don Berwick, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Boston, MA, provided a compelling framework for the quality agenda to continue and be the focus for quality of care. He suggested key elements such as assuring and continuously working on and expanding the notion of quality - including patient experience by creating a culture of quality. Leadership is a key enabler of collective action to influence both organisational and system change.
Emma McCahon, Board member and Chief Executive Officer, Central Adelaide Health Network facilitated a lively panel discussion with Dr Dale Bramley, Board member and Interim Chief Executive, Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora; Dr David Rosengren, Director General, Qld Department of Health; Dr Robyn Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer, SA Department of Health & Wellbeing. The emerging themes from the discussion centred around data and it use in health care. They highlighted the opportunity to utilise data strategically to drive meaningful evidence-based change. Rich discussion was heard on the importance of data sovereignty and ownership of patient health data and responsibility to learn, share and return information to benefit population health. This led to discussion about data sharing across borders and how global issues follow similar patterns in different countries. Data could be used to predict patient outcomes, inequitable health care and workforce development.
Dr Penelope Dash, Chair of NHS England, highlighted the need to redesign health systems to better support integrated, population-based care. From a UK perspective with global relevance, she emphasised the role of system leaders as advocates for modernised service delivery, including virtual care delivery, AI, and digital tools like genomics and wearables devices to provide personalised preventative health care. She also discussed data sharing to drive clinical effectiveness and patient experience. She noted the challenge of achieving this in bureaucratic environments, calling for a shift toward primary care through the UK Integrated Care Boards in regional models that prioritise quality outcomes at an efficient cost.
The positive response from attendees and the depth of engagement across both days strongly support the case for making this an ongoing part of the Health Roundtable calendar.
