Three Workshops, Two Continents, and One Mission: Promoting the Highest Quality Patient Care

Jan 16, 2020

In November 2019, ASCO held a series of 1-day Quality Training Program (QTP) workshops in three cities outside the United States: Mérida, Mexico; Madrid, Spain; and Toronto, Canada.

The first course was held November 7, at Fiesta Americana Hotel in Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico. Hosted by the Sociedad Mexicana de Oncología, A.C. (SMEO), this workshop featured Omar Peña Curiel, MD, a previous QTP graduate from Mexico, who presented his QTP project to provide an example of seeing a relevant quality improvement endeavor through from problem statement identification to intervention impacts. Piyush Srivastava, MD, and Vedner Guerrier, MBA, were the ASCO faculty on hand to teach and demonstrate program tools and to help attendees design quality improvement projects.

The second course was held November 14, at Riu Plaza de España Hotel in Madrid, Spain, ahead of the 1st Oncology Quality Care Symposium™ on November 15–16, with both events hosted by Fundación ECO para la Excelencia y la Calidad de la Oncología. The workshop drew 20 participants from Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland, who were led by faculty Michael Keng, MD, and Arif Kamal, MD.

The third course was held November 22, at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and was hosted by Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto. Faculty Doris Quinn, PhD, and Duncan Phillips, MBA, led the workshop’s 25 participants as they learned about and practiced the QTP tools and methodologies. The workshop included lectures and hands-on exercises on topics that included tools for quality improvement and understanding data.

The QTP is designed to prepare oncology care teams to design, implement, and lead successful quality improvement activities in their practice settings. The program is offered as a 6-month course or a 1-day workshop and more than 200 teams from around the world have participated. View the library of past quality improvement projects.

The workshop introduces tools and frameworks that are used in quality improvement and teaches attendees to effectively lead or participate in improvement activities. The goal is to give oncology providers skills and a sense of empowerment to tackle quality improvement projects that will help reduce clinical variation and improve patient outcomes. The workshops are customized to the host practice’s needs and requirements, and they train participants to:

  • Identify clinical and operational targets for improvement
  • Form a high-functioning interdisciplinary improvement team
  • Utilize process analysis tools
  • Structure a quality improvement project

Sessions can be led by ASCO staff and esteemed faculty or licensed to a specific practice or institution to conduct its own training. ASCO has previously hosted QTP sessions in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Additional language translations are available and subject to the collaboration with the participating practice or institution. The licensed program includes all the presentation slides, a faculty instruction manual, and the right to display a special ASCO logo.

Learn more about the QTP.

For more information on bringing a 1-day workshop to your practice, contact ASCO’S Global Quality team.

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