Small steps … improving quality one team at a time in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan's Health Quality Council (HQC) was launched in 2003 with a mandate to not only measure and report on healthcare but also work with a range of partners to improve the province's health system. In late 2007, HQC's board decided it was time for Saskatchewan to reinvent its healthcare system, using the highest-performing systems in the world as its model. And in 2008, HQC launched Accelerating Excellence, a multi-level program to rethink, redesign and renew healthcare. To help maintain momentum and show other provinces whether high-performing healthcare can be achieved in Canada, HQC is documenting its journey. This fifth article in this series discusses the incremental steps needed to effect and sustain change.