The Africa Consortium for
Quality Improvement
Research (ACQUIRE) in
Frontline Healthcare
“Healthcare without quality is ineffective, wasteful, and hampers progress towards improved health outcomes”
Lancet Commission Report, 2019
THE BIG IDEA
ACQUIRE seeks to build learning health systems that ensure high quality health care for everyone in sub-Saharan Africa.
WHY IS ADDRESSING QUALITY IN HEALTHCARE SO IMPORTANT?
Three in every five preventable deaths are due to poor quality of care at health facilities in low-and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
When a surgery leads to infection, antibiotics are overprescribed, or diabetic drugs are not used at the proper dose, and patients suffer.
Weak systems and processes are at fault in many of these healthcare institutions rather than the absence of trained healthcare workers, guidelines, and policies.
Building systems that efficiently and effectively deliver quality care is possible, but it must start at the frontline giving healthcare workers training in the science of quality improvement so that they can drive positive system changes right, where it matters most, at the bedside of the patient.
Why Do QI Our Way?
Frontline-led QI is a paradigm shift. We know what to do, but we don’t know how to do it consistently, excellently and at scale.
QI is the engine that drives SSA towards an implementation science strategy of change at the granular, frontline level where it meets the patients’ needs in real-time.
QI is implementation science leveraging evidence-based practice. At the center are feedback loops that allow for real time learning, accountability and measurable change – where data drives decision making at the frontline.
Why Focus on the Frontline?
The frontline healthcare worker is the only actor who knows what is really happening with the patient.
The frontline perspective is where the action happens. The health worker is the driver of systems thinking for contextually relevant, quality improvement in outcomes and patient-centered care.
Frontline health worker quality improvement happens when peers are working in cross-disciplinary teams, looking at real-time data, testing change ideas and creating feedback loops while co-producing new knowledge.
Working at the frontline democratises the health workers agency for change; it’s a bottom-up organic initiative versus top-down, siloed responses.
Key Patient Safety Facts by WHO
- Around 1 in every 10 patients is harmed in health care and more than 3 million deaths occur annually due to unsafe care. In low-to-middle-income countries, as many as 4 in 100 people die from unsafe care.
- Above 50% of harm (1 in every 20 patients) is preventable; half of this harm is attributed to medications.
- Some estimates suggest that as many as 4 in 10 patients are harmed in primary and ambulatory settings, while up to 80% (23.6–85%) of this harm can be avoided.
ACQUIRE in Frontline Healthcare
ACQUIRE seeks to build learning health systems that ensure high-quality health care for everyone in sub-Saharan Africa.
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