Organisations in Focus
Qscan Radiology Clinics
Meet the 2018 QIP Chair Health Service of the Year Award Winner, Qscan Radiology Clinics (Qscan), comprehensive Diagnostic Medical Imaging and Interventional practice with multiple clinics in South-East Queensland and additional Qscan Group partner clinics elsewhere in Australia.
Qscan are a dynamic organisation driven by clarity of vision and values that focus on providing compassionate care for patients and excellence for referrers.
We caught up with Chris Munday, CEO of Qscan, Dr Tanya Wood, Head of Qscan’s Quality Committee, and Alice Gesmundo, Qscan’s Quality Coordinator, to see how things have been since winning the award.
QIP Team: How did the team react and celebrate to the win?
Qscan Team: Naturally, we were thrilled to be announced as the winners. We all felt an immense pride that Qscan’s staff had received recognition for the incredible amount of hard work that has gone into striving to meet and exceed the quality benchmarks. As a company, Qscan is proud to be recognised for our commitment to quality improvements and innovation enabling us to provide the best patient services, care and safety. Following the Excellence Award, the Management at Qscan took the opportunity to thank the Doctors and the rest of Qscan staff for their hard work and focus on quality improvements throughout Qscan on a day-to-day basis. Individual staff were recognised for their outstanding achievements and ongoing commitment towards quality improvement.
QIP Team: What do you feel is the secret to Qscan’s success?
Qscan Team: The secret of Qscan lies in the following aspects:
- Expert Radiologists who are leaders in their subspecialty
- A clarity of vision and values, focusing on providing compassionate care for patients and excellence for referrers
- Patient centred organisation putting our patient first with regards to safety and quality of care
- Continual review of our processes to further improve the quality and delivery of our services for both the referrer and the patient
- Modality heads with many years expertise
- Highly trained staff throughout all the departments
- Advanced, state-of-the-art technology
- A robust quality management tool
- Continuing education, and
- High standard of practice with accreditation through QIP.
QIP Team: Have any plans been made on what the financial benefit of winning will be spent on?
Qscan Team: We are keen to ensure our staff is continually recognised for their input in identifying and implementing change. Qscan would like to utilise this reward to support our ongoing quality initiatives and improvement projects with funding provided for further education and representation of our staff at quality-focused conferences.
Find out more about Qscan
Qscan’s healthcare objectives
Qscan’s healthcare objectives are achieved through subspecialty trained Radiologists and highly trained clinical and support staff, while utilising the latest information technology and state of the art medical imaging equipment.
With continuous quality improvement systems and processes embedded across all aspects of the organisation’s operations, Qscan has demonstrated an exceptional focus on the quality of care and service they deliver to their patients. The organisation operates on a culture that is quality driven, safe and innovative to improve diagnostic and clinical care services while management actively encourages staff in risk management and improvement activities.
Establishment of a Quality Committee and electronic reporting system across the health service has changed and improved QScan’s service delivery significantly. In a recent initiative, the use of technology has seen a rise in the success of required staff training, increasing the staff ’s ability to perform their job.
Qscan is committed to providing rapid responses to patient and referrer feedback. They have a strong risk management policy to prevent and minimise risk to ensure their teams have a fundamental role in the delivery of safe, high-quality care and the patient experience is of the highest quality.
Highlighting achievements made by Qscan and how they go above and beyond on a daily basis, below are some of their initiatives which supported their Excellence Winner submission for QIP Chair Health Service of the Year.
Q-Pulse Quality Management System
The Q-Pulse quality management system (Q-Pulse) tool assists Qscan in achieving excellence in quality of service. Q-Pulse is used for approving, reviewing and securely storing all documentation, compliments and complaints, and manages all stages of audits.
Within Q-Pulse is the Corrective and Preventative Actions (CAPA) program, used for raising and managing all non-conformances and improvement ideas. CAPA gives Qscan the opportunity to respond to feedback from stakeholders, and holds a centralised corporate reporting system, with the ability to prevent problems as well as solve problems quickly and thoroughly to minimise impact and lessen the chance of re-occurrence.
The impacts of reporting of incidents through Q-Pulse has seen quick notifications to management, resulting in rapid response to patient and referrer feedback.
Feedback in Q-Pulse, including compliments and complaints, has a 24-hour response time.
Improved Data Analysis
The analysis module incorporated into Q-Pulse gives staff the option to drill-down into a specific area data and identify trends or key problems. This data analysis improves primary issues, allows Qscan to evaluate current diagnostic imaging service performance and find solutions to improve the service.
Q-Pulse Training Program
Video tutorials cover everything from login, an intro to Q-Pulse, inputting feedback, reporting incidents and document management.
Feedback Opportunities
Collecting and analysing patient and referrer feedback (doctors) directly from patients, Qscan websites, google reviews and patient surveys. Patients and referrers feedback are lodged into the Q-Pulse Reporting System within 24 hours to record compliments and manage complaints. Listening to and responding to the patient and referrer’s feedback has been deemed the most effective form of attaining the advice from stakeholders.
All feedback is lodged into Q-Pulse and Qscan uses the data obtained to identify quality improvement processes to prevent the incidents from reoccurring. A monthly statistical analysis is printed from Q-Pulse and studied every month by the Qscan Management and Quality Committee to identify the number and type of complaints with similar contributing factors. Interventions are applied to prevent the same type of issue to reoccur. Acknowledging feedback increases customer satisfaction and creates long-term relationships between Qscan and customers.
Quality Committee
In January 2017, a Quality Committee was launched at Qscan with a purpose to oversee and provide advice, guidance and assurance to the Qscan’s partners, QIP, RANZCR and other key stake-holders that they are operating to the expected level and ensures the quality of the services and imaging provided.
The objective of the Quality Committee is to meet monthly to ensure Qscan continually meets all necessary diagnostic imaging standards and recommendations for ongoing accreditation.
Policy and Procedure Manuals
Due to the nature of Qscan’s services, many staff and patients are placed in a vulnerable position for the transmission of blood-borne viruses. Qscan mitigates the potentially high risk of both the transmission of infectious agents and needle stick injuries thanks to revised policy and procedures.
These revised policy and procedures have improved quality and safety within the organisation by:
- Providing quicker access to guidelines and other necessary documents, including the immediate assessment required, management and follow-up of individuals who are potentially at risk
- Q-Pulse offers routing configuration, sending automatic notification to Occupational Health and Safety Officers and other key stakeholders who are able to advise and care for the injured individual immediately, and
- Improving access to Pathology reports, with Qscan nurses given a direct access, allowing for more immediate advice the injured individual of follow-up procedures.
Compliments, Rewards and Recognition of Staff
Qscan sees compliments as an opportunity to praise and appreciate their staff for a job well done. Qscan Management apply this process through a direct feedback from Qscan’s Chief Operations Officer to each individual.
Additionally, staff are recognised for their excellent patient service through Qscan’s Reward and Recognition Program. These initiatives inspire staff to be more productive, engaged and improve their performance, which has a direct positive impact on patient care.
Quality Framework
The focus of Qscan’s service is all about the patient and referrer’s needs, and the experience of care that they receive from Qscan staff. The interaction between staff and the clients determines the quality of care provided and Qscan staff are accountable for the safety and quality of care they deliver. Qscan operates on a culture that is quality driven, safe and innovative to improve diagnostic and clinical care services.
Patients and Qscan Staff
Client’s experience and quality of care are the focus of Qscan’s quality framework. Radiologists, Technical and Customer Service teams have a fundamental role in the delivery of safe, high quality care.
Quality and Safety
- Client’s participation, clinical effectiveness, effective workforce and risk management are four aspects of Qscan’s quality and safety. It provides a framework for strategies to enhance the delivery of clinical care. Each aspect has several quality and safety management functions that require review and direction from the Quality Manager
- Consumer participation – review of complaints and compliments
- Clinical effectiveness – review of Clinical audits, Accreditation and Improvement activities
- Effective workforce – Qscan staff undergo strict credentialing to ensure high quality of service, and
- Risk Management – review of incident reports.
Governance System
The Board of Qscan is committed to ensuring patients and referring practitioners receive high-quality services. The Board is responsible for ensuring the safety and quality of diagnostic medical imaging services provided to patients throughout the organisation.
The Board assigns responsibility to the Executive Doctors and management team to:
- Ensure risks are managed within the business through developing and implementing a process to prevent and minimise risks
- Develop and implement systems to ensure employees understand their responsibilities and enable clinical governance processes to be applied throughout Qscan via the appropriate structures, policies, processes and resources
- Ensure clinical employees are suitably qualified to undertake their role through a comprehensive recruitment process and a credentialing process that meets state and national statutory requirements, and
- A continuing professional development process to ensure maintenance and growth of professional excellence through participation in lifelong learning programs which are planned and implemented to achieve this for the benefit of Qscan staff, patients and community.
In March 2018, Qscan launched the Qscan Clinical Committee to oversee the clinical governance of the organisation. Through this framework, Qscan is continuously striving for quality improvement in their processes.
