Indicating the Way to Quality Care

The NHS Information Centre has published a set of 200 indicators of quality care. This is the result of a piece of work started by Darzi's report 'High Quality Care for All' and you can tell the clinician involvement has been continued into the deliverable with the phrase "assured by clinicians for use by clinicians". The report, downloadable in specific sections, is structured around pathways so that the indicators are clinically relevent. I've not done a count of indicators to see whether the report really has 200 indicators, but I actually find it refreshingly transparent that many sections of the document as described in one way or another as 'to be done'. It has to be said that the mechanics of governance and maintenance have been put in place around the report too so it will continue to evolve. The indicators address Effectiveness, Patient Experience and Safety, and therefore reflects current progressive thinking about what value means in health care (see "War on Waste" by Ali Parsa).

Posting from the NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO

I'm typing this post from the very glamorous NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO 2009 at ExCeL in London. I'm not sure why EXPO is all uppercase, but I am sure that it is by design because this is a slick looking event in terms of marketing, the presentation of the venue, the stands and the supporting materials. It's the beginning of the day, with a Director of NASA kicking things off right now and luminaries to follow such as Prof. Lord Darzi and Martha Lane-Fox (the Government's new Digital Champion). I can only hope that the content of the EXPO lives up to the quality of the event. The big question for me is whether what is clearly a substantial amount of taxpayer money being driven into healthcare innovation is delivering results? Let's hope I'm not disappointed.