Aims

After completion of the Minor, students are able

• To detect challenges for healthcare systems, in The Netherlands and abroad;
• To explain the perspectives on quality of care from the different stakeholders (patients, healthcare providers, payers, the inspectorate, policy-makers);
• To design an appropriate improvement plan (innovation and implementation) for a healthcare issue.

The aim of this minor is to deepen the understanding and teaching the skills regarding methods of quality of care management and research. The minor is structured around three themes on quality of care  that is (1) healthcare (systems), (2) different stakeholder’s perspectives on quality of care, and (3) designing an appropriate improvement plan (innovation and implementation). Knowledge on healthcare systems and their health outcomes shows improvement possibilities. The definition of meaningful patient outcomes is crucial in this process. Quality of care relates to various outcomes. Furthermore, patients, doctors and payers draw attention to different aspects of these outcomes. So, choosing outcomes is more or less a profession in itself, and it is basic material for the evaluation of care. Nowadays, care is often organised in care pathways (integrated care) in which different professionals need to collaborate (interprofessional collaboration). Integrated care stresses the search for meaningful outcomes even more, but raises also questions on the governance of the collaborative. Who is ideally in charge? How is information shared? These questions are addressed in the minor as well. As professionals will have to keep on track with all these changes, the development of an improvement plan to introduce changes will be at the heart of the minor. To learn how quality management takes place in clinical practice an excursion to a nursing home will be arranged. Key words Healthcare system, quality of care, cost and value of care, stakeholders’ perspectives, data and interpretation, interprofessional collaboration, improvement plan