Our quality

Institute for Quality Assurance and Patient Safety

Institute for Quality Assurance and Patient Safety

The independent Institute for Quality Assurance and Patient Safety tests the quality and safety of patient care in our hospital. A team of experts (audit team) continuously conducts independent research into the quality of patient care in the form of internal audits. Through audits the audit team makes it clear what is going well in the care process and where there are risks or points for improvement. We look at how things work in daily practice. For example during the hospital admission of patients, in administering drugs to patients or around an operation. No audit is the same. Every time we look at what is needed and create a tailor-made audit.

The audit team invites healthcare employees and patients to look at how the care is delivered in conversations or during observation rounds (tracers). The audit team checks in an appreciative manner with a focus on what we want to achieve and what we want to learn. We encourage (healthcare) employees to share ‘good practices’ with their colleagues. We contribute to a Radboud culture of learning from and with each other and create quality awareness.

We substantiate the audit findings with facts and present them collected in a report. The Institute for Quality Assurance and Patient Safety consists of representatives of doctors, nurses, paramedics and scientists in the field of quality and safety. They connect the audit findings with the vision and direction of Radboudumc and provide advice. These recommendations give direction to quality improvement projects.

Patient involvement

The Institute attaches much value to patient involvement in audits. And therefore, we work together with de Patient Advisory Board in designing audits, determining the focus of the audit and improving the performance of audits. Within the audits the auditors observe how the care process is carried out in practice. During an observation round the auditors give patients with their permission, the opportunity to share their experiences with hospital care.