The Fourth Dimension

This year's World Patient Safety Day recognizes the vulnerability of children to risks and harm caused by unsafe care. As WHO calls for urgent action to eliminate avoidable harm in paediatric and newborn care, the Fourth Dimension brings in Dr Peter Lachman for a discussion on how we can collectively drive meaningful improvements and reaffirm every child's right to safe and quality care. Dr Peter Lachman works across different countries and settings and leads quality improvement, patient safety and training around those topics.

From smarter diagnostics to personalized treatment plans, AI is already making a tangible impact on quality of care, patient safety and health outcomes. But how do we ensure these tools are designed with actual needs in mind? In this episode we explore with Joana Seringa, from Portugal's NOVA School of Public Health, how artificial intelligence is reshaping the pursuit of quality in healthcare and what innovative models of care could look like. Find out more: https://www.who.int/europe/teams/office-on-quality-of-care-patient-safety

One of the most important dimensions of Quality of Care is person-centredness. A word that is broadly used but not thoroughly discussed as to what it should look like. On this episode we discuss with two young members of the WHO pan-European Mental Health Coalition, Inês Mália Sarmento and Dion Ras, and with Dr Jen Hall, WHO technical officer for mental health, what active participation looks like and how health policies can be improved through co-creation.#PersonCentredCare#MentalHealthCoCreationFind out more: https://www.who.int/europe/health-topics/quality-of-care

Quality of care and public health are interlinked in many ways, most importantly in terms of how efficiency, effectiveness, efficacy, equity and person centredness have a central role in both. Health care is a significant aspect of public health and improving the quality of care has a profound impact on population health. Policy makers can adopt quality improvement methods for public health, whereas quality of care can expand outside the facility walls. On the fourth episode of The Fourth Dimension, we discuss with Dr Válter Fonseca, on how quality of care and public health are complementary with many common characteristics.Find out more:https://www.who.int/europe/activities/improving-quality-of-primary-health-care-for-children-and-adolescentshttps://www.who.int/europe/news/item/03-01-2024-enhancing-health-systems-capacities-in-the-who-european-regionhttps://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2023/10/23/default-calendar/first-who-autumn-school-on-quality-of-care-and-patient-safety

Technology and digital tools have been shaping health care and the health sector in an exponential rate during the last few decades. Even more so they have shifted the perception of what health care can be. As with many other aspects in public health and health care the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process and placed the critical role of digital health in the limelight, however, disparities in digital transformation still do exist. In the third episode of The Fourth Dimension,we discuss with Dr Henrique Martinshow digital health can be a significant enabler to achieve health goals, improve quality of care, as well as promote and safeguard health equality. Also, we look into how the WHO Athens Office for Quality of Care and Patient Safety can support Member States and stakeholders towards achieving these goals.

The second episode of The Fourth Dimension looks into aspects of quality of care at the level of health systems and health sector. This episode’s guest Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of the Division of Country Health Polices and Systems at WHO Regional Office for Europe, sheds some light on how quality of care and patient safety can be found and improved across the whole spectrum of health care services - from hospital care to primary care and from rehabilitation services to nursing homes. In that sense, outside the processed in health care settings there are many factors that might affect quality of care, upstream at the health system level, like financing, health workforce and externalities that press health systems, such as economic crises and wars. Like also the recent pandemic, when inequalities in quality of care both among and within health systems were exacerbated in the European Region. Within that framework, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat discusses all these complications and how WHO Europe supports Member States in transforming their health systems towards improving their quality of care and ensuring patient safety.

The concept of quality of care in health policy has been receiving increased attention over the last couple of decades.  The literature on quality of care has increased three-fold since the 1990s.  Most recently, quality of care is mentioned in the context of the sustainable development goals.  Despite this universal acceptance of its importance, however, there is not a common understanding of what quality of care actually is and what it entails, let alone what needs to be done to improve it.More about Quality of Care from WHO: https://www.who.int/health-topics/universal-health-coverage/quality-of-care#tab=tab_1