Patients as active partners in the green transition

Our health depends on the health of the planet: about the role of patients as active partners in the transition to an ecologically sustainable health system and how we can activate and empower every patient and service user.

In 2019, ISQua was one of the first international professional health care organizations to acknowledge the impacts of climate change on all aspects of our work. Then president of ISQua Peter Lachman, opened the 36th International conference in Cape Town with a statement on sustainable health care as related to quality, affordability, and accessibility. He referred to the outcomes of the renowned Lancet Countdown project, a global academic collaboration with the ability to track, monitor and publish progress on health and climate change.

  1. ISQua recognizes the serious consequences of climate change and pollution for the health of individuals and populations across the planet. 
  2. ISQua recognizes that the healthcare sector has a responsibility to minimize its impact on climate change and pollution. 
  3. ISQua recognizes the urgency and importance of climate change as part of its mission to inspire and empower people to advocate for and facilitate health and improvements, in the quality and safety of healthcare worldwide.
  4. ISQua believes that inspiring and empowering people to advocate for, and facilitate health and improvements includes the promotion of climate sustainability and implementation of climate-friendly interventions.   
  5. ISQua will support the promotion of climate sustainability in the health care sector.
    • [Box 1 ISQua principles regarding Climate Change, 2019]

Two years later, just after COVID-19, The Lancet published the São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health (Oct. 2021) a global call to action from the planetary health community charting a path forward to support a more equitable and resilient post-pandemic world. The awareness and knowledge in the health care community of the ecological impacts on health and healthcare grew. And ever since 2019 ISQua has been advancing their principles regarding health care’s response to climate change (Box 1.) in terms of quality improvement projects and policies, and in educational trajectories, culminating in the launch of a green paper (‘Green care is high quality care’) and Call to Action at the 40th international conference in Istanbul (2024). One year later, at the international meet-up in São Paulo, ISQua provided a platform for numerous ‘green’ examples presented in (pre-conference) workshops, expert sessions, orals and even a plenary session, as well as many posters to review. It is now customary that every international ISQua conference holds a track on ‘Climate change & Sustainability’. During the closing ceremony of the São Paulo-conference ISQua president Ezequiel Garcia Elorrio referred to Brazil’s role as host of the 30th UN Conference of Parties Climate Summit that took place in Belém last year, and later the ISQua Board even delivered a Call to Action on behalf of our health care community to COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago.

For us, all this demonstrated the crucial dedication of ISQua organisation, members and participants to what The Lancet called “the greatest challenge of our era” and the WHO classified as “(..) the greatest threat to global public health.” Coping with altering life conditions and dealing with higher temperatures, extreme weather events, pollution, biodiversity loss and their consequences for our health, the health of our loved ones, colleagues and patients. And adapting our health systems to deal with these consequences that may have different timing and impact depending on where you live but will eventually affect all of us.  

A somewhat under-served theme here is the role of patients in the transition to a healthcare system with a much smaller, and far healthier, ecological footprint. During ISQua’s home game in Dublin we will address this important theme in the panel session ‘Patients as Engaged Partners in Sustainable Healthcare: Next steps for the ISQua Green Paper’ (ISQUA2026-SES-2043). We will explore this topic in collaboration with Patients for Patient Safety Ireland and CAHO India.

We hereby invite you to join us on Tuesday Sep 29th, 2026, 13:45-14:30 and share as many stories as possible on how patients, clients, public and professionals are working together as active partners to make current health care practices more sustainable. With these and other outcomes we seek to enrich and renew ISQua’s Green Paper, and eventually, improve health care quality and safety for all. Since an ecologically sustainable health system serves the health of the planet, on which our health depends.

By Hans C. Ossebaard (Netherlands)

Lallu Joseph (India)

Tiberius Pereira (Ireland)

Aditya Vyas (Australia)

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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.

I finished my Fellowship in Healthcare Quality from the International Society of Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) from Ireland in 2017.

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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