Sponsors and Supporters

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Simpler was founded in 1996 and has become the largest exclusively Lean Transformation coaching organisation in the world. With over 140 Sensei in the US, Europe, and Asia, Simpler has built a reputation for strategically applying Lean to achieve breakthrough performance. Our client list numbers in the hundreds and many are household names (examples:Gillette, PepsiCo, Hanes Brands, Baxter, Owens-Corning, Lockheed-Martin, and Duracell). Simpler consultants deliver services using the Simpler Business System (SBS). It is a Lean model founded on the values, principles and tools of the Toyota Production System.

The Simpler Business System model integrates a variety of awareness, training and improvement activities at all levels of the organisation. Each has an independent purpose, but it's the permutation of these actions that provides Lean Transformation and reduced risk.

BUPA is an international health and care company based in the UK where it is the market leader. Established in 1947, it has over 28 million customers in 190 countries and more than 40,000 employees. Its main interests are health insurance, care homes for older people and young disabled, health assessments, workplace health and childcare services. BUPA Travel offers a bespoke travel insurance service. Sanitas in Spain, HBA and Mutual Community in Australia, IHI in Denmark and AMEDEX in the US are all part of the BUPA Group which also has centres in Hong-Kong, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. BUPA is a company limited by guarantee and does not have a share capital. As a result, it can focus on its customers and can reinvest all of its profits to do this.

The Haute Autorité de santé (HAS) - or French National Authority for Health - was set up by the French government in August 2004 in order to bring together under a single roof a number of activities designed to improve the quality of patient care and to guarantee equity within the healthcare system.

HAS activities are diverse. They range from assessment of drugs, medical devices, and procedures to publication of guidelines to accreditation of healthcare organisations and certification of doctors. All are based on rigorously acquired scientific expertise. Training in quality issues and information provision are also key components of its work programme.

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement supports the NHS to transform healthcare for patients and the public by rapidly developing and spreading new ways of working, new technology and world class leadership.

The MeaH is a French national agency linked to the Ministry of Health that provides leadership for operational and quality improvement projects. Since its creation in 2003, the MeaH has worked with more than 850 teams and 450 hospitals. 24 topics ranging from drug safety to stroke management have been opened.

The MeaH pursues three complementary objectives:

1. Explore hospital organizations / identify best organizational practices / identify key success factors for their implementation;
2. Coach hospitals teams, through improvement projects, to improve quality of care, safety, efficiency and professional satisfaction;
3. Diffuse as largely as possible the best organizational practices thus identified.