ISQua, the International Society for Quality in Health Care, has established The International Academy of Quality & Safety (IAQS) as a prestigious institution to honour distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

ISQua members don’t need telling that the task of improving healthcare is not a simple one. Evidence and experience from the work we’ve funded at the Health Foundation tells us it’s often fiendishly complex, requiring careful design, diligent execution, multiple cycles of testing and iteration, deep reserves of leadership energy and enthusiasm, and much more.

ISQua is delighted to announce the launch of our new Journal – IJQHC Communications, in partnership with our publisher, Oxford University Press (OUP). IJQHC Communications (IJCOMS) is an open-access, peer-reviewed, international journal that will publish research related to quality and safety in health care, with a focus on implementation science, for a worldwide readership.

We were delighted to host author Hugh MacLeod for our fourth episode in the ISQua Podcast series.

The topic for this episode was: “Humanizing Quality and Patient Safety Improvement”

"Insights that I gained are twofold. First, patient safety is always a top priority. No small issue needs to be left unattended or ignored as it has the potential to cause a fatality. Two, there is a need for a multidisciplinary collaboration The institutional and systems thinking approaches are critical in health care. Good procedures, communication, accountability and sharing of information are critical to avoiding mistakes and medical errors."

ISQua were delighted to host Dr Gilbert Buckle and Elom Otchi who presented a fantastic live webinar with a Q&A session on Transforming & Navigating Healthcare Quality & Safety into the Future: Reflections from AfIHQSA. This session was an ISQua African Community of Practice meeting which was also made available as an open webinar.

ISQua were delighted to host the very first 'Learning About Improvement' Community of Practice! The team at the USAID ASSIST project presented a very interesting and interactive session on the lessons learned from implementing research and evaluation studies.

In my time as an ISQua Emerging Leader, I have been learning through an approach based on knowledge transfer and skills exchange. It’s strange but great because I've become more aware of and have really experienced Brian Herbert’s quote: “The capacity to learn is a gift, the ability to learn is a skill and the willingness to learn is a choice.”

Data collection, timely analysis and reporting back to the health sector in a transparent manner is fundamental to improving quality and safety and to identify system failures when it occurs.