On the 15th of March 2019 the third meeting of SYNERGY, the Caribbean Network of Leadership in Healthcare will be held on Saba.
The meeting is organised in cooperation with Saba Health Care Foundation and Benevolent Foundation Saba. Main topic is Safety. Keynote speaker will be Koen Hulshof, GGD doctor and Head of Public Health Department Saba. More information can be found the SYNERGY website.
Last week I have been supporting the development of an activity plan to help the Kenya School for Integrated Medicine in Kwale to become financially sustainable from February 2020. Together with the management, staff members, Board members and the former Minister of Health from Kwale County, we explored the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for the school, leading to the definition of three projects that will help the school not only to survive, but to grow: 21st century curriculum redesign, e-learning and the establishment of the DHIS2 tracker Xpert centre.
On the 5th for November the second SYNERGY meeting took place on Statia. The Caribbean network of leadership in healthcare was hosted by Sint Eustatius healthcare Foundation this time. There were 22 participants, from 9 healthcare institutes from St Maarten, Statia and Saba. The topic of the day was Quality. Besides a keynote speech by Carol King, Public Health st. Eustatius, there was a workshop on quality paradigms by Everard van Kemenade and four organisations presented their best practices on quality management: White and Yellow Cross care Foundation (Bregje Boetekees), St Eustatius Healthcare Foundation (Granville Hassel) , Benevolent Foundation Saba and Saba Health Care Foundation (Floor Burghgraef and Natascha Ulehake) .
The day overall was rated 8.5 (8.2) on a ten point scale. The possibility for networking was rated 8.7 (8.7). The question to what extent this day motivated to come next time rated also 8.7 (8.3). (Between brackets you can see the scores on the satisfaction of the first SYNERGY meeting). The next meeting is planned 15th of March 2019 on Saba and will be on Safety.
On St. Maarten a Middle Management course was organised for 14 healthcare professionals from 5 institutes of three Caribbean islands: Saba, Statia and St Maarten. The course was about strategic planning on departmental level; on leadership and follower-ship and on giving, receiving and asking for feedback.
The participants rated their satisfaction for the course overall with 4.3 on a five point scale. In the remarks it was emphasised that it is a surplus to have this training together with other HC organisations in the region. Of course there is room for improvement. One participant suggested next time “to kick it up a notch”. The extent to which the participants felt better equipped for their job scored a 4. The trainer scored 4.2 on training competencies and 4.3 on content knowledge. Eleven of the fourteen participants stated that they would surely recommend this course to others, two answered very likely, one would likely recommend the course to others.
“Feed it, burp it and put it to bed, ’cause this baby’s done”. On the 22nd of October my latest publication about the R2E2 – Model © for Total Quality Management was ready. R2E2 stands for Reflection, Reference, Empirical and Emergence. These are the four paradigms that constitute Total Quality Management, in my definition of the term. Ideally an organisation can use all four paradigms (see posts 11, 9 and 5) situationally, when needed depending on the context. The R2E2-Model © gives an organisation the opportunity to see to what extent all four paradigms are represented in its planning and actions. The version of the R2E2-Model © is focused on healthcare organisations and will be used on the second meeting of SYNERGY in a workshop. A sample of the R2E2-Model © for Total Quality Management can be downloaded here.
