Wendy Wilkinson, Director of Clinical Quality at InHealth, spoke to the audience about quality management in radiology from an independent provider perspective.
InHealth sees 800,000 patients per year (mostly for imaging), has a workforce comprising 450 radiographers, with a further 250 radiologists who have working privileges. The organisation offers 12 modalities.
“Our core values are trust, care, passion and fresh thinking. Our vision: Make healthcare better – excellence in everything. Our mission: To be the patient’s preferred provider of high quality diagnostics in hospitals and in the community.”
Wendy began by mentioning strategy: “How do we deliver quality, consistently? How do we develop our teams and how do we make sure we are up-to-date and developing in the right way?”
She described how key components are achieved within InHealth: “The process of clinical audit is a systematic activity and provides accountability. And at the centre of our organisation we have managers telling us how we are doing and how we can improve.”
“Additionally, promoting more patient involvement is important for higher satisfaction levels and lower costs, as well as encouraging patients to assume more responsibility for and control of their own health.”
At the heart of InHealth, explained Wendy, is patient safety and risk management – finding, recognising and describing risks that can damage people and the organisation.
“We aim to deliver services that manage risk in service delivery, with a consistent approach to training, minimising the chances of incidents – patient or staff.”
“An effective quality strategy makes healthcare better for patients and assures the board that patients are facing staff delivering services who are competent.”