Understanding clinical excellence
Delivering good quality services is something that I hold in a high regard in both my clinical roles as a behaviour support practitioner and occupational therapist, as well as supporting KEO Care team members through supervision in my PBS clinical excellence lead and acting clinical service manager roles. I am lucky to be able to incorporate clinical excellence in my daily role at KEO Care.
What is clinical excellence?
At its core, Clinical Excellence is the consistent delivery of high-quality services, that combines clinical knowledge with person-centered practice. It includes:
Continuous improvement: Engaging in an ongoing process of learning and improvement, which includes lifelong learning, as well as adaptations to processes.
Evidence based practice: Using the latest clinical evidence and research, combined with the therapist’s clinical knowledge and experience, to inform assessment and intervention planning.
Person-centered practice: Understanding that each person as an individual with their own needs, wants and goals, and working with the person to develop tailored intervention approaches that best meet their needs.
Why is clinical excellence important?
Better outcomes for participants: When combining the best evidence and research with the participant’s individual experience and needs, an intervention approach is tailored to the person. This translates to greater outcomes and goal achievements.
Professional satisfaction: Therapists can experience greater satisfaction and pride in their work when working in best practice and supporting their participants to achieve their goals.
Efficient in the long term: By investing in clinical excellence, there is more intentional use of initial assessment, intervention planning and delivery. By focusing on what is important to the person and how best to achieve this, there is less use of unnecessary assessments or intervention approaches that do not fit the person’s needs and goals.
How to achieve clinical excellence
There are several ways we engage in ongoing clinical excellence at KEO Care, including but not limited to:
Clinical guidelines and practices
- Interdisciplinary collaboration: The clinical support team comes together regularly to discuss common themes across all disciplines and problem solve together.
- Using evidence-based practice to inform processes and guidelines: Processes and guidelines are reviewed and updated in an ongoing capacity to align with best practice.
Developing a culture of learning and excellence through:
- Values: Two of KEO Care’s core values are striving for excellence and lifelong learning which underpin many decisions and processes. Excellence is recognized and celebrated!
- Leadership behaviour: All leaders at KEO Care demonstrate evidence-based practice when working with participants and colleagues, as well as modeling through KEO Care’s values.
Continuous professional development through:
- Clinical workshops: There are regular opportunities to engage in internal professional development workshops that focus on evidence-based practice with practical case examples in particular topic areas.
- Supervision: Every KEO Care team member engages in regular supervision, tailored to their level of clinical experience.
- Peer review: All reports are peer reviewed by a clinical specialist or clinical excellence lead to ensure all reports are delivered to a high standard.
References
Kandasamy, T., Stockley, R. C., Hendriks, J. M., Fini, N. A., Bulto, L. N., & Lynch, E. A. (2024). Conceptualising Centres of Clinical Excellence: A Scoping Review. BMJ open, 14(12).
Kapur, N. (2009). On the pursuit of clinical excellence. Clinical Governance: An International Journal, 14(1), 24–37.
Panteli, D., Legido-Quigley, H., Reichebner, C., Ollenschläger, G., Schäfer, C., & Busse, R. (2019). Clinical practice guidelines as a quality strategy. Improving healthcare quality in Europe, 233.
Rawlins, M. (1999). In pursuit of quality: the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. The Lancet, 353(9158), 1079-1082.
Tomlin, E. M. (2018). Patients at the centre of design to improve the quality of care; exploring the experience-based co-design approach within the NHS (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds).
About the author
Sonia is KEO Care’s PBS Clinical Excellence Lead. She is an experienced paediatric occupational therapist and specialist positive behaviour support practitioner. She specialises in working with children and families, focusing on supporting children to achieve their goals in their everyday life. She has had experience working across multiple settings, including specialist schools, in clinic environments and in the community.
