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. 2018 Jun;5(2):88-93.
doi: 10.7861/futurehosp.5-2-88.

Sustainability in quality improvement: redefining value

Frances Mortimer  1 , Jennifer Isherwood  2 , Alexander Wilkinson  3 , Emma Vaux  4   5
Affiliations

Sustainability in quality improvement: redefining value

Frances Mortimer et al. Future Healthc J. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

Sustainability can be considered a domain of quality in -healthcare, extending the responsibility of health services to patients not just of today but of the future. The longer term -perspective highlights the impacts of our healthcare system on our environment and communities and in turn back onto population health. A sustainable approach will therefore expand the healthcare definition of value to measure health outcomes against environmental and social impacts alongside financial costs. We set out a practical framework for including these new dimensions in an already well-defined model of quality improvement. This has the potential to harness the growing quality improvement movement to shape a more sustainable health service, while improving patient outcomes. Early experience suggests that the new model may also provide immediate -benefits, including additional motivation for clinicians to engage in quality improvement, directing their efforts towards high value interventions and enabling capture and communication of a wider range of impacts on patients, staff and communities.

Keywords: Sustainability; environment; quality improvement; social value; value.

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Figures

Fig 1.
Fig 1.
Domains of quality (adapted by the Royal College of Physicians from the Institute of Medicine).1
Fig 2.
Fig 2.
Productivity, efficiency and technical value (adapted with ­permission of M Gray, University of ­Oxford): Muir Gray et al. How to get ­better value healthcare. Offox press.8
Fig 3.
Fig 3.
Sustainable value in healthcare.
Fig 4.
Fig 4.
Goods and services carbon hotspots by healthcare sector. Source: Goods and services carbon hotspots. NHS Sustainable Development Unit, 2012. Reproduced with permission. SHA = strategic health authority
Fig 5.
Fig 5.
The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare ‘Principles of sustainable clinical practice’.12
Fig 6.
Fig 6.
Driver diagram illustrating use of The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare principles of sustainable clinical practice.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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