Wednesday 11 March 2026 | 10:45-11:45
Stream: Science
Compere: Amar Shah National Clinical Director for Improvement, NHS England; UK

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

Whether it’s tackling drug-related deaths or mental health models of care, these complex challenges require a different approach. This session shares the insights from combining both quality improvement and realist methodology to using the implementation of Trigger Checklist, used within the Emergency Department, to reduce drug-related harm and death as an exemplar.

Rather than starting the research from the premise of what works realist methodology considers what works, for whom, in what context. This approach underpins generative causation within the social science by identifying patterns of interaction. Importantly mechanisms of causation are latent until initiated in certain circumstances (contexts) to achieve certain outcomes. Contexts can then be manipulated to activate mechanisms to achieve desired outcomes.

Using improvement methodology to implement the Trigger Checklist enabled speedy implementation and learning. While conducting a realist evaluation provided explanatory insights that would be otherwise unknown. These insights are theoretically sound yet offer practical application.

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 -  “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