Wednesday 11 March 2026 | 10:45-11:45
Stream: Science
Compere: Jafet Arrieta Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Join us for our World Cafés, new to the Oslo Forum this year. During each session, participants will get a choice of 15-20 tables to join, each hosted by different speakers on a variety of topics. Each World Café will be made up of three rounds of 15 minutes, enabling participants to join three discussions during the session.

Participants will be able to:

• be actively involved in small group discussions, which fosters deeper engagement and participation
• share and explore multiple viewpoints, leading to richer and more comprehensive insights
• collaborate in an environment that promotes open dialogue with a wide range of people and ideas

Table 1 - What fosters a culture of continuous improvement in nursing teams? Insights from a mixed-method study on context and competencies

How can hospitals build and sustain a culture of continuous quality improvement (QI) at the frontline of care? This session presents novel insights from a research project investigating the contextual factors and competencies influencing the efficacy of QI efforts in nursing teams. Drawing on a conceptual framework and a newly validated measurement instrument focusing on team-level QI context, the study maps the culture of continuous QI within nursing teams. Participants will discover how leadership, culture, team climate, organisational support, and individual capacities influence the presence of a QI culture and effective QI projects. With healthcare organisations facing persistent challenges—from workforce shortages to growing patient complexity—this session offers research informed guidance and practical strategies to assist nurses, managers, and policy-makers to enhance improvement efforts at the micro level. Delegates will leave with actionable insights to strengthen QI culture and drive meaningful, sustained change in care delivery.

Stijn Slootmans University of Antwerp; Belgium

Table 2 -  Thorny problems require new approaches if we want different outcomes: combining realist and improvement methodology to reduce drug-related deaths

This session explores how blending realist thinking with improvement tools helps us tackle thorny problems - by uncovering the real reasons interventions work (or don’t). Join us to examine how this approach helped reduce drug‑related harm and how it could support challenges in your own context

Michelle Beattie University of the Highlands and Islands; Scotland

Table 3 -  From quality metrics to triple value: delivering people, pounds and planet impact

The improvement science community faces a fundamental challenge: while we have sophisticated methods for process improvement, we lack frameworks connecting integrated value domains (financial sustainability, health equity, and environmental impact). This disconnect manifests in organisational structures where quality teams focus on safety and outcomes, whilst finance teams target cost savings and efficiency separately. It's a siloed approach that limits our potential to create value at scale.

Drawing from East London NHS Foundation Trust's experience delivering £15.5m in cost efficiencies through Improving Flow (£8.5m) and Nursing Retention (£7m) whilst advancing equity and sustainability, this session explores how quality initiatives can create multi-dimensional value pursuing the Triple Bottom Line—Planet, People and Pounds.

Through real-world triumphs and failures, participants will reconceptualise improvement—from narrow optimisation to integrated value creation—addressing financial crisis, health inequities, and climate emergency simultaneously across systems.

Warning: this session will make returning to siloed thinking impossible.

Joanna Moore East London NHS Foundation Trust; UK

Table 4 -  Management system by stealth: when is a management system not a management system?

Do you have multiple change programmes all seeking to drive improve in different ways? Do they compete for time & resource? Are you trying to implement a management system approach but meeting resistance?

Find out how a large London acute hospital, after 8 years of work to create a culture of continuous improvement, refocused their efforts to move improvement from a nice-to-have into the way that we run our organisation by simplifying and unifying our approach across multiple interdependent programmes to create a single improvement approach accessible for all staff to apply to all of their work.

In this session we describe how we co-designed, planned and are iteratively testing this approach which embodies the core components of a management system (in particular prioritised improvement plans, improvement driven routines and improvement leadership behaviours), but importantly why we chose not to give it this label.

Lauren Harding Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; UK
Lara Ritchie Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; UK

Table 5 -  Measuring the so called “soft” things

In a world of increasing focus on technology, it can be easy to overlook the relational aspects of health and care in pursuit of high quality care. Kindness, compassion, relationships, trust aren’t just nice to have, they are the key to the future of our health and care systems. Yet for too long they have been labelled as ‘soft and fluffy’ and dismissed as things people often claim “can’t be measured.”

This narrative is both wrong and is holding us back in making progress to improving our health systems. 

In this session we will (a) explore the logic that sits behind the argument as to why there is nothing soft about these key relational approaches to change and improvement (b) highlight key evidence and examples of impact and (c) share a practical framework through which to measure them – because what matters most can and should be measured. We will also highlight how the use of technology can aid in this work.

Bob Klaber Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; UK 
Dominique Allwood Imperial College Health Partners; UK 

Table 6 - Embedding measurement in clinical pathways: a departmental framework for operationalizing measurement across pediatric clinical pathways

Teams developing new clinical pathway guidance frequently defer or overlook measurement planning during project inception, intending to address it later. This can lead to inconsistent measurement, delays in analytics build, lagging data availability for teams, and repeated revisions to definitions and specifications as feasibility changes. Such delays led to inability to determine if clinical pathways were improving patient-centered outcome measures. Discover how the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, embedded structured interventions to support measurement in the lifecycle of clinical pathways, decreasing time to metric release, improving measurement review, and providing actionable data for further pathway revisions and implementation. 

Daniel Kelly Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School; USA

Table 7 - Closing the door to need gap: Embedding improvement methodology for sustainable change in stroke thrombolysis

This project shows how a multidisciplinary team transformed the stroke thrombolysis pathway by using practical improvement methods, real‑time data and strong staff & patient collaboration to close the performance gap. It demonstrates that even in pressured acute settings, simple, standardised changes co‑designed with frontline staff can accelerate care, reduce unwarranted delays and deliver measurably better outcomes for patients.

Ben Morris Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; UK

Table 8 - Evaluating the efficacy of a quality improvement model in primary care

How can structured Quality Improvement models be embedded into everyday primary care practice to drive measurable outcomes, build staff capability, and sustain system-wide improvement?

Grounded in the Model for Improvement and PDSA cycles, this World Café explores real-world evidence, implementation challenges, and practical strategies for strengthening QI culture across primary care settings.

Sitti Surmiya Laja Primary Health Care Corporation; Qatar

Table 9 - TSH3030: a 30 day quality improvement sprint- outcomes and lessons learned

During the workshop, we will outline the methods used in the TSH3030 QI sprint and offer delegates the opportunity to engage in discussions on this approach. The session will cover planning and implementation processes, insights and learning gained from these sprints, examples of projects taken forward, and key considerations for delegates interested in local adoption.

Monica Merson The State Hospital; UK

Table 10 - Improving patient value, experience, and operational efficiency through clinic space and workflow redesign using Lean and Six Sigma methodologies

Y C Lee Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital; Taiwan

Table 11 - Building a data confident culture in healthcare: from frontline curiosity to executive leadership

Saraspadee Veeramah West London NHS Trust; UK 

Table 12 -  “Jump Start!”: a novel use of simulation to bridge from innovation to implementation

While Quality Improvement (QI) remains a powerful tool for innovation and system re-design, current approaches have had limited success in spreading and sustaining innovations that emerge from our QI work. Borrowing from the widespread global experience of using simulation to build clinical expertise and confidence, we have used similar approaches to introduce and accelerate the uptake and spread of implementation innovations. The session will review the theoretical basis of using simulation for introducing and sustaining ideas and tools for improved care, illustrated with case studies from Brazil and Africa.

Pierre Barker Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA