Further learning and knowledge management
Capturing and documenting lessons, both successes and failures, is critical during the process of improving health service quality. The essential focus is to understand why actions or changes applied within a system/context led to improved outcomes and influenced impact; or conversely what has not brought about the intended outcome(s). A proactive emphasis against focusing on blame or shame is required, as this often impedes improvement by hiding critical issues or facts, and not appreciating such experience as important learning moments.
Vast amounts of new knowledge are produced during efforts to improve quality of care. How this new knowledge is transformed for effective decision making across levels of the health system requires deliberate action. Capturing accounts of why, when, for whom and how change occurs is fundamental to learning about improvement. Being able to document and communicate these lessons is important to help accelerate and expand successful actions, and to ensure the planning of quality health services is informed by local actions and outcomes.
The process of sharing the learning from improving health service quality merits careful attention during the design, implementation and review of efforts to improve quality of care. Learning should be shared at all levels of the health system – within the original site where the improvement occurred, with teams at the relevant level, whether that be at the community, facility, sub-national/district level and/or national level, and even between countries. This approach ensures that successful actions are scaled up to drive overall impact on quality of health services.
How these lessons are institutionalized and used involves multiple disciplines and sectors, including stakeholders within and beyond the health sector, in order to achieve broad buy-in and understanding. These may include formal education sectors, such as universities and vocational schools, as well as professional bodies, research institutions and the private sector. Reducing barriers to shared learning and applying a critical lens to lessons allow for better utilization of tried and tested as well as novel approaches for improving health service quality.
WHO is committed to advancing the learning agenda on quality health services. Key learning mechanisms that exist within WHO to advance the learning agenda are outlined below:
The Global Learning Laboratory for Quality Universal Health Coverage: A dedicated community of multidisciplinary stakeholders that connects professionals globally on issues related to quality of health services.
Integrated People-centred Health Services: A global knowledge exchange platform dedicated to supporting people-centred health service delivery reforms for universal health coverage.
Global Community of Practice for Quality of Care: A community of health practitioners from around the world sharing their know-how, ideas and challenges on quality improvement for maternal, newborn and child health.
WHO Global Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Portal: : A resource that supports situational analysis, tracking progress and making improvements to IPC programmes and/or activities at the national and facility levels, in accordance with WHO standards and associated implantation materials.
Global Patient Safety Network (GPSN): An online platform for key stakeholders to share and discuss ideas, approaches, tools, and best practices from around the world, with the aim of improving patient safety.
COVID-19 Health Services Learning Hub (HLH): A knowledge platform that supports cross-country learning in maintaining essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the post-pandemic recovery phase. The HLH supports implementation of WHO operational guidance on maintaining essential health services.
MNCAH Quality of Care Learning Hub: A repository as part of the learning collaborative developed by the Network for Improving quality of care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) to document and share tried and tested MNCH quality improvement (QI) interventions and the lessons learned, for the purpose of adaptation, adoption and scale up.
Capturing and documenting lessons, both successes and failures, is critical during the process of improving health service quality. The essential focus is to understand why actions or changes applied within a system/context led to improved outcomes and influenced impact; or conversely what has not brought about the intended outcome(s). The WHO lifelong learning development platform, the WHO Academy, is a state-of-the-art training institution that bridges the gap between learning and doing by optimizing adult learning through online and classroom-based courses. The Academy expands access to critical knowledge, informed by a wide range of WHO normative guidance, to millions of health workers, managers, public health officials and policy makers, enabling and implementing evidence-based, high-quality and safe health care.