RCSI President, Mr Kenneth Mealy, welcomed over 400 attendees to the NOCA Annual Conference 2019. There was a truly multidisciplinary audience with representatives from hospitals, hospital groups, HSE, Department of Health, healthcare professional bodies, patient advocacy groups and many more.

The event today shows how far NOCA has come, and how these national clinical audits are driving change in Irish healthcare. NOCA's audit portfolio is growing, with both the Stroke and Acute Coronary Syndrome audits coming under the management and governance of the organisation. Clinical audit, combined with an active culture of quality improvement, will benefit patient care and outcomes.

Mr Kenneth Mealy, President, RCSI

The event saw the launch of two national clinical audit reports - Irish National ICU Audit Annual Report 2017 and Major Trauma Audit National Report 2017. There were also two projects shortlisted to present for the NOCA Quality Improvement Champion Award 2019. Dr Kevin Clarkson from Galway University Hospitals presented their project ‘Kaizen 2 Emergency Surgery Flow’ and Julie Horgan from The Rotunda Hospital presented their project ‘Outpatient midwifery induction of labour initiative to reduce time waiting’. Both projects excellently demonstrated the application of quality improvement methodology to improve care for their patients locally. During her closing speech, Collette Tully, NOCA Executive Director, announced The Rotunda Hospital as winners of the NOCA Quality Improvement Champion Award 2019.

​Philip Barrett, a visual artist, graphically captured all of the presentations at the event. This was kindly sponsored by DMF Systems, an ICT partner for the Irish National ICU Audit. A booklet of images of the full day can be found here.

Presentations from the event can be downloaded by clicking on the presentation titles below.

Speaker Presentation Dr Rory Dwyer, Clinical Lead, Irish National ICU Audit LAUNCH: Irish National ICU Audit Annual Report 2017 Barbara Egan, Public/Patient Interest Representative, Irish National ICU Audit Governance Committee ICU: A patient's Perspective Eric Hans Eddes, Director, Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing (DICA) Improving healthcare nationwide through clinical auditing: Preconditions, results and opportunities Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer, HSE Clinical leadership, audit and learning Dom Raban, Managing Director, Corporation Pop Xploro: Using emerging technologies to improve the patient experience Laura Magahy, Executive Director, Sláintecare Sláintecare implementation plan Hugh McCaughey, Chief Executive of the South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust Using QI to drive service change - a personal experience Dr Conor Deasy, Clinical Lead, Major Trauma Audit LAUNCH: Major Trauma Audit National Report 2017 Prof Belinda Gabbe, Head of Pre-hospital, Emergency and Trauma Research Unit, Monash University Using trauma registry data to drive system improvement Prof Richard Greene, Director, National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre (NPEC) National audit: Improved care marking 10 years of NPEC & clinical audit in the maternity services