Cohsasa CEO elected to ISQua Academy of Quality and Safety

Jacqui Stewart

Stewart was a member of the South African Lancet Commission on High Quality Health Systems and is an ISQua Expert. She is currently an ISQua Board member and serves on the Accreditation Council of ISQua. She has a Master of Professional Studies Health from Middlesex University, London and was recently chosen as one 100 Most Impactful Healthcare Leaders by the World Health & Wellness Congress for 2019.

She joins luminaries in the universe of quality improvement and patient safety such as Sir Liam Donaldson, Donald Berwick, Jeffrey Braithwaite, Charles Vincent and Bill Runciman. Her fellow members of the academy from South Africa are Laetitia Rispel, Professor of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand and Professor Morgan Chetty, Chair of the Independent Practitioners Association Foundation in South Africa.

Those elected to the academy from the continent of Africa are Dr Gilbert Buckle, Executive Director, Africa Institute of Health Quality Safety and Accreditation (AfIHQSA), Ghana (he is also a COHSASA Board Member), Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, Executive Director and Head, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Africa Region, Ghana and Emmanuel Aiyenigba Improvement Advisor for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Nigeria.

According to the ISQua website, the Academy recognises excellence of leadership within research, academia or service delivery in quality and safety in healthcare. Membership of the Academy is one of the highest honours that an individual working in this area can receive.

The 35 founding members of the IAQS were nominated and then elected by ISQua Experts and the Board in June 2018. Membership of the Academy is for life. Professor David Bates, President of ISQua from 2013-2015 and the Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems, Partners HealthCare System, Inc., Chief Division of General Internal Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA, leads the Academy.