Join ISQua in Florence, Italy for #ISQua2020

We invite healthcare professionals, students, patients, policymakers to share their ideas, successes and achievements at ISQua’s 37th International Healthcare Conference in Florence, Italy from 30th August to 2nd September 2020. Submit by 30th January 2020 for a chance to present in Florence.

We invite healthcare professionals, students, patients, policymakers to share their ideas, successes and achievements at ISQua’s 37th International Healthcare Conference in Florence, Italy from 30th August to 2nd September 2020. Submit by 30th January 2020 for a chance to present in Florence.

The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Emotion, Inspiration and Creativity: Pathways to Global Health Quality’.

The renaissance in Italy was a period of rebirth with new ideas discoveries and the flowering of wonderful art. As we move from Cape Town to Florence, so we are taking the quality and safety movement to a new level. We hope that there will be the rebirth of our belief systems in the goodness of health and the ability to deliver safe and effective people-centred care.

For the conference, we chose three key essential components of the Renaissance – Emotion, Inspiration and Creativity as we believe these will the pathway to Global Health Quality

Those interested in presenting their work as an oral presentation or as a poster can submit an abstract online under the following sub-themes:

Emotion refers to what we believe – the why we do the work we do – what drives us to pursue perfection in the care we deliver, with kindness, empathy and compassion.

1. Leading for Quality [Emotion]

  • Policy for Quality and Safety
  • Developing Leaders for quality and safety
  • Economic benefits of improving quality and safety
  • Behavioural Economics

2. Focus on the Person [Emotion]

  • Peoples Experience as providers and receivers of care and community care
  • Voice of the Person as Patient: Goals, Outcomes and Experience
  • Caring for Healthcare Providers
  • People’s Perception of Community Care
  • Art, Culture and Medicine

Inspiration shows us what can happen if we have dreams of greatness in the care we deliver.

3. Education, Knowledge and Learning [Inspiration]

  • Reverse Learning and Teaching
  • Preparing future generations for quality
  • Developing the workforce
  • Learning health systems for coproducing health, quality & science

4. External Evaluation [Inspiration]

  • Regulation
  • Accreditation
  • Licensing
  • Performance Monitoring
  • Certification

5. Facilitating Future Health [Inspiration]

  • Digital Health
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big data
  • e-Health
  • The ageing population
  • People with chronic illness
  • Promoting well-being
  • The transition from Life/ Advance Care Planning (ACP)

Creativity is always thinking of what could be better and then coming up with the solutions to improve care.

6. Designing for People Safety [Creativity]

  • Resilience
  • Human Factors
  • Human Factors in litigation
  • Ergonomics
  • Medication Safety
  • Infection, Prevention and Control
  • Patient Safety Tools and Solutions
  • Co-designing and co-producing safe systems

7. Building Sustainable and Comprehensive Care [Creativity]

  • Building Hospitals for the Future
  • Climate Change
  • Integrated and Universal Health Care
  • Human Resources
  • Pre-Primary Care (Health Literacy, including TV and Media)
  • Primary Healthcare
  • Mental Health
  • Palliative and End of Life Care
  • Co-designing and co-delivering high-value services

8. Quality in Resource-Challenged Settings [Creativity]

  • LMIC
  • Fragile States
  • Vulnerable Settings
  • War zones
  • Currency fluctuation
  • Corruption
  • Migration
  • Leveraging coproduction

All of these fit in with ISQua’s mission ‘to inspire and empower people to advocate for, and facilitate health and improvements, in the quality and safety of healthcare worldwide.’

Join us to improve your Knowledge, build your Network, and make your Voice heard at #ISQua2020

The deadline for submission is 30th January 2020. For more details and to submit your paper please visit our website – https://www.isqua.org/events/florence-2020.html.

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

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Nourhan Kawtharani


Nourhan, a quality and safety coordinator with eight years of experience in ambulatory healthcare in Lebanon, aims to deepen her understanding of the systemic and holistic approach to healthcare through this fellowship.

She aims to identify gaps and develop tailored interventions that address specific contexts rather than applying general solutions. Engaging with diverse professionals and perspectives during this educational journey will expand the application of these concepts across different cultural settings.

Nourhan emphasizes the importance of promoting a culture of continuous learning and improvement within healthcare institutions, considering it a vital leadership responsibility to integrate quality and safety initiatives into the organizational culture.

Nourhan's commitment to patient safety and quality management includes sourcing practical resources and transforming insights into actionable knowledge to drive continued progress in healthcare practices and outcomes.

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Elom Otchi


Elom is passionate about improving quality of care and patient safety outcomes.

In view of this, he has had the opportunity to work in various capacities with various organisations including AfIHQSA, WHO, UNICEF and others undertaking research, supporting the development of national quality policies and strategies, facilitating the establishment of quality governance systems across all the levels of the health sector and building capacity of national and sub-national quality leads/teams to institutionalize the practice of quality and patient safety across the continent.

He has also worked extensively across all levels of care in the health sector of Ghana, including leading the Quality & Patient Safety program in its largest teaching hospital.

I would like to use this Fellowship as a learning platform and an opportunity to acquire the requisite knowledge, skills and competencies to complement ongoing efforts by like-minded individuals and organizations to continuously advance improve the quality and patient safety in Ghana and the continent.

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Stephen Taiye Balogun


Stephen is a Senior Programme Officer at the Institute of Human Virology in Nigeria as well as Country Representative for Health Information for All (HIFA).

Stephen plans to use this opportunity to maximise his impact by championing the cause of patient safety and quality in Nigeria and across Africa.

Stephen says "Quality and safety is a major wheel through which universal healthcare coverage can be achieved. The goal is to be a bridge in the gap between the International Quality Improvement and Patient Safety community and my country to ensure rapid spread, adoption, implementation and practice."

We are looking forward to working with both Stephen and our 2020 winner Rhoda Kalondu over the next year.

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Dr Rhoda Kalondu


Rhoda is the Head of the Patient Safety Unit at Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi and wants to use this Fellowship to learn how to establish a culture of safety and develop systems for assessment and analysis at her institution, and more widely. As well as this, Rhoda intends to develop and execute an intervention to improve patient safety in Kenyatta National Hospital.

It is one thing to institute measures and processes for improvement, but quite another to change the culture of an environment. Rhoda's ambition to lead others in this change inspired the panel.

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Dr Subhrojyoti Bhowmick


I am an MBBS graduate from Calcutta University with a Gold Medal in Gynecology & Obstetrics.

I have completed M.D in Pharmacology from IPGME& R, Kolkata and have over 12 years of experience in the field of Clinical Research, Pharmacovigilance and Medication management in Hospitals.

I have completed certification in Clinical Research Administration & Project Management from Stanford University, USA and in Patient Safety from Johns Hopkins University, USA.

I am an Assessor for National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Health care providers (NABH), India assessing hospitals for medication safety and clinical quality standards and NABH Assessor for Ethics Committee Accreditation program in India as well.

I serve as the Chairperson, Institutional Ethics Committee of Health Point Hospital, Kolkata and am associated with 2 other Hospital ethics committees as a member.

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I have published several research articles and have also authored a chapter on “Regulations governing Clinical Trial” in the book “Fundamentals of Clinical Trial & Research”.

I am a peer reviewer for prestigious international journals like the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, CNS Drugs and Drug Safety case reports.

I am the recipient of the UK Seth Oration Award for Best Clinical Pharmacology paper by the Indian Pharmacological Society in 2009 and the “Most promising Healthcare professional in Patient Safety in India” award by the Asian African Chamber of Commerce and Industry in October 2018.

Recently in April 2019, I received the Young Quality Achiever award by Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO), India for 2019 for my work in the field of medication safety and clinical research.

I have a keen interest in teaching and am visiting adjunct faculty of Pharmacology at KMC, Mangalore, India and for Healthcare technology at MAKAUT, Kolkata, India.

I was associated with Stanford University School of Medicine, in the USA as a Senior Clinical Research Associate from 2015 to 2017 and have certification in Biostatistics, Evidence-based Medicine and Medical Writing from Stanford University.

Currently, I am working as the Clinical Director of Academics, Medical Quality and Clinical Research at Peerless Hospital and B K Roy Research Centre, Kolkata.

I am very happy and thrilled to receive the prestigious ISQua Lucian Leape Patient safety Fellowship Award for 2019 and I look forward to honing my skills further in the field of healthcare quality and patient safety through my experiences during this fellowship.

I sincerely believe that successful completion of this fellowship will help me evolve as a more confident Patient safety leader in India who in turn can provide significant inputs on policy changes through NABH for the Indian healthcare system.

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