New to ISQua EEA: Assessing quality and patient safety training programme
ISQua EEA has launched a new programme to assess quality and patient safety training programmes/courses delivered to health and social care professionals. Through this new programme those delivering quality and patient safety training courses to health and social care professionals can demonstrate that their quality and patient safety training courses have been designed and developed in line with international best practice requirements.
What type of training courses/programmes will be assessed under this new programme?
This new programme will allow ISQua EEA to assess continuous professional development training courses in quality and patient safety or related topics designed for health and social care professionals. Such courses could include general programmes/courses such as introductory courses on patient safety or quality improvement or courses on a specific topic such as infection prevention and control, person-centred care, communication and patient safety or clinical risk management among others. These programmes/courses could be undertaken by health or social care professionals who wish to learn more about a specific topic to help them in their current role. Such courses could be delivered in-person or online or via a combination of both methods.
Will this new programme assess university courses?
This programme will not assess programmes/courses on quality and patient safety provided by universities or other third level education institutions. It is expected that these programmes will be accredited in line with the university or education institution’s existing policy or requirements for accreditation of university provided education programmes.
Who can apply to get their quality and patient safety training programme assessed by ISQua EEA?
Organisations who design and deliver training programmes/courses on quality and patient safety or related topics for health and social care professionals can apply to get their training courses assessed by ISQua EEA. Such courses could be developed and delivered by professional representative groups such as Medical Associations or private providers. Training programmes developed as a partnership or collaboration between a professional group such as a Medical Association and an education institution and offered as a continuous professional development course may be assessed under this programme.
How will the training programmes be assessed?
The quality and patient safety training programmes will be assessed against the Guidelines and Standards for Quality and Patient Safety Training Programmes. The assessment will be undertaken as a desk-top exercise. This means that the assessment will be based on the completed self-assessment and supporting evidence provided by your organisation. The survey team will not visit your organisation as part of their assessment or interview staff. Therefore, it is important that you clearly explain how you do things, and who is responsible for the different activities in your self-assessment tool and that you provide relevant evidence to demonstrate your processes. ISQua EEA staff will review your submission at different stages before it is provided to the survey team so they will provide feedback on areas where you may need to provide additional explanation or evidence.
What will the assessment of quality and patient safety training programmes look at?
The assessment of quality and patient safety training programmes will explore how the training course is planned, how it is managed in the organisation and who is responsible for making decisions about it, how the training programme is delivered including the support and information provided to trainees/learners and how trainees’/learners’ performance and achievements are measured against the expected outcomes of the quality and patient safety training programme.
I’m interested in this programme what should I do first?
In the first instance you should download a copy of the Guidelines and Standards for Quality and Patient Safety Training Programmes to see what will be assessed as part of the assessment or survey as we call the assessment. You should first undertake a gap analysis against the standards. This is a process whereby you review each criterion to see if your organisation is meeting it, how your organisation is meeting it and to identify the type of evidence that you could provide to demonstrate to the survey team how your organisation is meeting the criterion and how you do things in your organisation. This will allow you to identify areas that you are performing well in relation to as well as some areas where you may need to do some extra work. In some situations, it will be easy to address the gaps that you identify but in other cases it might take longer. You could then discuss this as a team to see if you wish to take action to address some of the areas where you are not performing as well and put a plan in place to address these. In this way it gives you an indication of how ready you are as an organisation to proceed for a survey or assessment and whether you could apply straight away or wait and address some of the identified gaps before applying.
However, you don’t need to have everything addressed before you apply for a survey or even undergo an assessment. If you are still working on some areas it is best to highlight this and the steps you are taking to address this in your self-assessment submission as the surveyors will take this into account when reviewing your submission and all evidence provided.
When you apply you can indicate your preferred survey dates on the application form. You can download this from the website iap-i-1-application-form.docx (live.com) and submit it to support@ieea.ch So you can still apply now even if you may not be ready to be assessed straight away.
If you have any questions regarding individual criteria or the requirements of the criteria as you undertake the gap analysis exercise please contact us via support@ieea.ch
I’m interested in this programme but I have some questions what should I do?
Contact us today at support@ieea.ch outlining your questions and we will arrange a Zoom call for you with ISQua EEA staff who will go through all your questions on the call.
How do I apply for this programme?
If you have downloaded the Guidelines and Standards for Quality and Patient Safety Training Programmes and undertaken a gap analysis exercise and you know when you would be ready for the survey, you can download a copy of the application form from the website iap-i-1-application-form.docx (live.com) and email it to support@ieea.ch. We will be in touch with you regarding your proposed survey dates.
What happens once I apply for assessment?
You will be contacted by a member of the ISQua EEA team who will begin a discussion with you regarding your preferred assessment or survey (which is the term we use for our assessments) dates. While we will try to give you your preferred survey dates this may not always be possible as we schedule our surveys in advance and may already have surveys booked for those dates or be at capacity for that month. We will offer survey dates as close to your requested survey dates as possible. If this is not possible we will explain why and will provide you with other dates. When we have agreed survey dates with you we will then invoice you for the access fee. The access fee is a once off payment, which entitles an organisation to enter the International Accreditation Programme (IAP) and to receive the full information pack. You will then be able to access Collaborate our online survey management system and to download the self-assessment tool for the programme (SAT) and to start to work on your submission. If your survey will take place within the same calendar year then you will also be invoiced for the annual fee for that year for example, 2024.
How are the ISQua EEA fees structured?
The ISQua EEA fee categories are based on the World Bank rankings for the country in which your organisation is located and operating out of. Therefore, if your organisation is located and operating from a country which is ranked as a high-income country by the World Bank then the high-income fees apply. For more information on World Bank country rankings please visit the World Bank website HERE.
Do I need to pay anything else after the first year?
If your training programme was successfully accredited in 2024 it would be accredited for 4 years until 2028. You would be required to pay the annual fee each year of the 4-year cycle from 2024 to 2028. The annual fee for 2024 would cover the assessment of the standards in 2024. You will be invoiced in Quarter 4 of the preceding year for the following year. So you will be invoiced in Quarter 4 2024 for 2025.
If my training programme is successfully accredited what then?
If your training programme is successfully accredited you will be required to submit progress reports on an annual basis outlining how and when the recommendations identified in the survey report are being or have been addressed. You must also provide information on an annual basis in relation to:
- Criterion 2.3: The operational plan for the quality and patient safety training programme
- Criterion 3.7: How evaluation data is analysed and used to make improvements to the overall quality and patient safety training programme
- Criterion 5.5: The arrangements in place that year to evaluate the impact of the training programme for trainees’/learners’
