Looking to other countries for lessons learned

摘要

As stated in the previous article, seeing how other countries have changed things in the way you plan to do can save both time and money. Lessons learned in one situation can be used by another organisation in another country. A key matter for consideration when making comparisons is the country context. Ideally we should be comparing countries that are similar to each other in terms of stages of development, but it can also be valuable to look at more contrasting, developing countries. It is important not to forget that we are talking about the universal common denominator of health care, which is everybody's concern. The differences are in the sophistication of the particular country's healthcare delivery systems and in its general stages of development. In comparing, we may be able to extract some common generic principles or policies. The online Patient Safety Resource Centre, maintained by the Health Foundation, has a number of world patient safety and health care quality resources listed and linked (see patientsafety.health.org.uk)