Innovation Qualité: Four smart ideas in the spotlight

Innovation Qualité, the new quality prize of the Swiss Academy for Quality in Medicine SAQM, honours the exemplary work of committed quality pioneers and makes it accessible to a broad public. As the FMH's own quality organisation for doctors, the SAQM also offers the professional community a platform for mutual exchange, inspiration and networking with Innovation Qualité.

37 quality projects from all parts of the country applied for the first Innovation Qualité - an impressive response that both speaks for the great commitment to quality in the Swiss healthcare system and reflects the valuable support of the prize by 23 partner organizations.

The 2018 winners were announced today. Four quality projects were particularly convincing because they successfully and sustainably increase the quality of medical services for the benefit of patients. Not least because the patients themselves are partly involved in the projects. In the category "Doctors' organisations", two equally strong quality projects share the award and the prize money of CHF 10,000, while the categories "Patient care rethought" (main topic in 2018) and "Patient safety" are each endowed with CHF 15,000.

Category "Patient care rethought
Power patients thanks to interprofessional "Chronic Care Management 
Sanacare AG has developed an interprofessional "Chronic Care Management CCM" for the diagnoses of arterial hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is an evidence-based, structured treatment pathway that focuses on the informed patient. CCM accomplishes the shift from purely medical to interprofessional team treatment of chronic diseases by delegating appropriate medical activities to the medical practice coordinator. In addition, the patient plays an active role in the treatment team. A CCM proceeds in annual cycles based on the PDCA cycle (Plan - Do - Check - Act). The treatment plan is defined together with the patient, implemented and adjusted according to progress. In this way, the quality of treatment can be increased, while at the same time reducing the number of doctor consultations. CCM has now been introduced in twelve group practices in German, Italian and French - with success and high acceptance among the approximately 600 patients involved.

Category "Patient Safety
How to detect adverse drug reactions
The aim of pharmacovigilance is to record adverse drug reactions (ADRs) after market launch. The basis for this is formed by spontaneous reports of ADRs or suspected ADRs by healthcare professionals. In general, however, adverse drug reactions are not reported in over 90 percent of cases. To counteract this "underreporting", an interprofessional team at the EOC, the Institute of Pharmacological Sciences of the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, has developed an electronic search system for ADRs that is as simple as it is efficient. This filters out possible ADRs from the digital patient files of the - protected - hospital network with ever greater precision, using known and continuously updated specialist terms. In the test phase, more than 55 percent of the ADRs found were reportable according to Swissmedic criteria, and 87.5 percent of these were defined as serious. The system was then successfully introduced into the daily work of the regional pharmacovigilance centre. If the search tool were translated into the other national languages, Switzerland's other pharmacovigilance centres could also use the system, thereby further enhancing national drug safety.

Category "Doctors' organizations
Less is sometimes more: smarter medicine - Choosing Wisely Switzerland
In 2014, the Swiss Society of General Internal Medicine SGAIM (formerly SGIM) launched the "smarter medicine" campaign and was the first medical society in Switzerland to publish two top five lists of five medical measures for which overuse had been identified. One each for the outpatient sector and, somewhat later, for the inpatient sector. In 2016, the SGAIM decided to deepen the successful campaign and to involve patients and consumers as well as non-physician professional organisations in the discussion against misuse and overuse in medicine. On 12 June 2017, the association "smarter medicine - Choosing Wisely Switzerland" was founded. In the meantime, four other medical professional associations have also published their own top five lists, and others are in preparation. The Choosing Wisely International Congress will be held in Zurich at the beginning of October 2018, at which a multi-year patient awareness campaign on the topic of misuse and overuse will be launched.

Category "Doctors' organizations
"I receive the best oncological care": Swiss Cancer Network certificate from the SGMO
All cancer patients in Switzerland should have access to high-quality oncological care close to home. With this goal in mind, the Swiss Society of Medical Oncology (SGMO) has created the "Swiss Cancer Network" quality certificate. Oncologists can be certified and audited by the SGMO according to this program. Until now, most patients lacked an instrument to assess the quality of oncological care. Thanks to the Swiss Cancer Network certificate, they can now be sure of receiving optimal treatment that follows, among other things, the recommendations of internationally recognised guidelines. Regardless of whether they receive treatment in a centre or in a private practice. All service providers are committed to continuous quality improvement, which also focuses competition on the quality of care. All institutions certified to date are listed on www.sgmo.ch published. Nationwide, there are already more than 30.

Further information:

www.innovationqualite.ch