The Leonardo da Vinci project “Innovative lifelong learning of European General Physicians (GPs) in Quality Improvement (QI) supported by information technology" aims to improve the existing training programs for both, GPs and teachers in family medicine (FM) in the field of QI by implementing new innovative didactic tools and methods in existing educational systems in Europe supported by Information/Internet Technology (IT).

Ensuring high quality care across Europe is of increasing concern for health care professionals and policy makers given growing mobility of both: professionals and patients as well as differences in the health care systems. QI has become an inseparable element of everyday medical practice. Rising health care demands coupled with complex patients’ expectations, developments in science and technology require high quality in the delivery of care. In primary care QI is a relatively new development. Central and Eastern European Countries are only at the beginning of the implementation of QI activities not only on GP or Family Medicine level but also on hospital level. The European definition of Family Medicine, a document created by WONCA in 2005, describes the ability of quality assurance as one of the family doctors’ core competencies. Also, the EURACT educational agenda from 2005, which is based on the European definition of Family Medicine, recognised quality assurance to be an important and essential part of medical education. Nevertheless, the real situation in Europe about teaching quality is different. There are countries within Europe that do not have this topic as a part of their curricula. and there is no consensus even between experts in QI and experts in teaching about which QI topics should be included, how and what is the importance of these topics as well as what competencies related to QI  should GPs/FDs posses in order to perform effectively.

In order to accelerate the adoption of QI and avoid the repetition of the same mistakes, GPs from different parts of Europe should be supported by appropriate lifelong learning programmes in this field.

Thus the project will concentrate on the development of:

• an overview of the current situation of teaching quality in the European medical curriculum, formulation of some general recommendations and a proposal for European curriculum in quality improvement, based on analysis of existing frameworks for quality improvement and teaching quality.
• a competency framework in the area of quality improvement for GPs/FDs to inform competence-based educational offer.
• an integrated web-based self-assessment tool measuring the educational needs of European GPs/FDs with respect to QI, facilitating an efficient lifelong learning educational practice based on continuous self-assessment.
• guidelines on effective development and implementation of QI programs on EU level,
• distance-learning, competence-based educational module for GPs/FDs in QI

We hope that the project will contribute to the improvement of quality and attractiveness of the training system in the area of QI in Europe.

For more information contact: dr Katarzyna Czabanowska

Academic coordinator

kasia.czabanowska@maastrichtuniversity.nl

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