The European Union Network on Patient Safety and Quality of Care is running
The second coordination meeting of the new Joint Action, “European Union Network on Patient Safety and Quality of Care” (PasQ) took place on 3-5 October 2012 in Madrid. EPF is a stakeholder partner in this three-year PaSQ Joint Action and we are actively involved in all the main work packages.
Co-funded under the EU Health Programme, the project formally kicked off in April 2012. PaSQ is led by the French Health Authority (HAS), and includes 38 partners encompassing all 27 EU Member States, international organisations and organisations representing stakeholder groups.
The overall objective of PaSQ is to support the implementation of the Council Recommendation on Patient Safety (2009). It will strengthen the existing network of cooperation among Member States, including the relevant stakeholder groups, and widens it to encompass quality of care. It will aim to set up a permanent platform for cooperation in the areas of safety and quality. Importantly, the empowerment and involvement of patients and citizens is included in the Joint Action as a specific topic.
Since the kick off and first coordination work in Denmark in May of this year, the partners have done a lot of work to develop the detailed work plans for each work package, as well as a literature review and a Glossary and Framework. For the latter, EPF has contributed a definition of patient empowerment and involvement. E-Questionnaires have been developed to gather information on good practices in patient safety at the clinical level (WP4), as well as good organisational practices relating to quality management systems (W6). The data collection task on these questionnaires, led by EPF, is taking place during the latter part of 2012 and preliminary results will be discussed at the third coordination meeting, which will take place in Berlin on 14-15 January 2012.
Organisation of the PaSQ Joint Action
The PaSQ JA inludes 7 work packages:
- WP 1 – Coordination
- WP 2 – Dissemination
- WP 3 – Evaluation
- WP 4 – Patient safety good clinical practices. This WP maps, analyses and makes available good practices in place in Member States, focusing on the clinical level.
- WP 5 – Patient safety initiatives implementation. This WP implements selected good practices in healthcare organisations of some Member States, on a voluntary basis, and based on a set of selection criteria such as transferability and evidene base.
- WP 6 – Quality healthcare systems collaboration in the EU. This WP maps and exchanges good organisational practices, focusing on the system level, including patient safety and patient/citizen involvement.
WP 7 – Network sustainability.
EPF is looking for good practices in patient involvement and empowerment
As one of the EU stakeholder organisations participating in PaSQ, EPF will shortly launch a call for submissions for good practices in patient safety and quality of care among our membership. Our questions will focus on patients’ involvement and empowerment.