IQ Action Plan: Supporting the Improving Quality Approach

IQ Action Plan: Supporting the Improving Quality Approach

Date of publication: September 2003

A quality improvement vision, aims and goals are identified in the Improving Quality: A Systems Approach for the New Zealand Health and Disability Sector (the IQ document).

Many organisations within the health and disability sector and the people delivering health and disability support services, are already undertaking a considerable range of activities that are supportive of the IQ vision, aims and goals. Considerable work to improve quality is already being done.

Examples include:

accreditation of many health and disability support service providers by a range of accreditation agencies
implementation of practice standards for primary health care by a number of general practices
the winning initiatives celebrated at the New Zealand Health Innovation Awards.

This first action plan is not a substitute for the work already being done. Nor is it a plan for instructing those delivering health and disability support services on how to do so. The plan captures the activities that organisations, particularly the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards (DHBs), will undertake to progress the vision, aims and goals of the improving quality approach.

It is intended that these actions should support an environment, within the health and disability sector, that enables organisations and individuals to continue the good work already being done, and to strengthen the quality improvement culture within the sector.

Cultural changes take time. The first steps in such changes typically involve communicating a new way of doing things.

The IQ document and this first action plan are therefore only the first steps in changing the balance between quality assurance and improvement within the health and disability sector. As the action plan is updated over time, greater attention will be given to implementation activities.

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