WORLD INNOVATION SUMMIT FOR HEALTH (WISH) ANNOUNCES SECOND SPEAKER IN ‘SAFER CARE ACCELERATOR’ SERIES

Professor Meltzer, Chief Of Hospital Medicine At University Of Chicago, To Discuss Importance Of Improved Care Coordination For High-Risk Patients

Doha, Qatar, 18 May 2015: The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), in partnership with Imperial College London, has announced its second event in the Leading Health Systems Network’s (LHSN) Safer Care Webinar Series: The Comprehensive Care Physician Model: Improving Care Continuity for High-risk Patients.
Taking place on 21 May, the webinar will focus on the rationale and design of the Comprehensive Care Physician Model, a University of Chicago Medicine programme that aims to improve continuity of patient care after a hospital stay and strengthen the bond between doctor and patient.
The model seeks to achieve its aim by assigning comprehensive care physicians (CCPs) to provide both inpatient and outpatient care to patients who are at high risk of hospitalisation, thereby ensuring better care provision at a lower cost.
The featured speaker for the webinar is Professor David O. Meltzer M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine, Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences, and Chair of the Committee on Clinical and Translational Science at The University of Chicago, where he is Professor in the Department of Medicine, and affiliated faculty of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and the Department of Economics.
Meltzer’s research explores problems in health economics and public policy with a focus on the theoretical foundations of medical cost-effectiveness analysis and the cost and quality of hospital care.
Prof. Meltzer said: “The Comprehensive Care Physician idea brings together the insights of modern health economics and health outcomes research with among the oldest ideas in all of medicine: when a patient is sick, they need someone they can trust and who knows them as a person.”
Innovative programmes like the Comprehensive Care Physician model aim to not only improve outcomes but also tackle the excess costs due to poor care coordination. In the US alone, it is estimated that poor care coordination results in USD25-45 billion of wasteful spending annually on avoidable readmissions and complications.
WISH is spearheaded by Qatar Foundation to inspire and diffuse healthcare innovation and best practice. It remains closely aligned to the vision and mission of QF to unlock human potential and reinforces Qatar’s pioneering role as an emerging centre for healthcare innovation.
Professor The Lord Darzi of Denham, Executive Chair of WISH, said: “Poor care coordination contributes to poor-quality care outcomes and costs nations billions of dollars every year through inadequate management of care transitions, unnecessary hospital readmissions, and poor communication.
Through the Safer Care Accelerator, we hope to disseminate best practice and provide insights and recommendations to enable healthcare leaders and policymakers to adopt more effective approaches for improving care coordination and continuity for patients within their systems.”
WISH launched the LHSN Safer Care Accelerator Programme to share best practice and inspire health systems worldwide to provide safer care for patients. The year-long programme will bring together a global network of healthcare organisations to exchange insights, experiences, and data on the topic of patient safety, culminating in the publication of a global report. So far, 16 organisations spanning six continents have joined the effort.
The Safer Care Accelerator Programme is part of WISH and Imperial College London’s LHSN initiative. Established in 2009, LHSN has worked with 21 health systems in 11 countries helping them to overcome the challenges they face in providing high-value care to the populations they serve. Members of LHSN compare performance relative to their peers, learn from experts and frontline implementers during webinars, and are active members in a community committed to care improvement and innovation.
To download the WISH report on Patient Safety and learn more about WISH, please visit: wish.org.qa. To join the webinar series, please contact the team at: lhsn@imperial.ac.uk.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:
For more information please contact:
Noha El Afify
WISH Communications Manager
nelafify@wish.org.qa

About the World Innovation Summit for Health:
The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) is a global healthcare community dedicated to capturing and disseminating the best evidence-based ideas and practices. WISH is an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) and is under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, its Chairperson.
The inaugural WISH Summit took place in Doha in 2013 and convened more than 1,000 global healthcare leaders. Through international summits and a range of on-going initiatives, WISH is creating a global community of leading innovators in healthcare policy, research and industry.
Together, they are harnessing the power of innovation to overcome the world’s most urgent healthcare challenges and inspire other stakeholders to action.

Qatar Foundation – Unlocking Human Potential
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development is a private, non-profit organisation that is supporting Qatar on its journey from a carbon economy to knowledge economy by unlocking human potential for the benefit of not only Qatar, but the world. WISH was co-founded in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, The Father Amir, and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of QF.
QF carries out its mission through three strategic pillars: education, science and research, and community development. QF’s education pillar brings world-class universities to Qatar to help create an education sector in which young people can develop the attitudes and skills required for a knowledge economy. Meanwhile, its science and research pillar builds Qatar’s innovation and technology capacity by developing and commercialising solutions through key sciences. Finally, its community development pillar helps foster a progressive society while also enhancing cultural life, protecting Qatar’s heritage and addressing immediate social needs in the community.
For a complete list of QF’s initiatives and projects, visit http://www.qf.org.qa
For more information about Qatar Foundation please contact our press office at: pressoffice@qf.org.qa