As I hand the President responsibilities over to Jeffrey Braithwaite, I pause to reflect on my 3 years as President. 

After decades participating at multiple levels within the International Society for Quality in Health Care, I am both delighted and humbled to be taking over the role of President this month from Wendy Nicklin. 

On 12 & 13 March, your ISQua Board held its annual retreat followed by the Board meeting.  I am pleased to summarize our deliberations herewith.

The Mission of ISQua is "to inspire and empower people to advocate for and facilitate health and improvements, in the quality and safety of healthcare worldwide. Our vision is to transform health, and the quality and safety of healthcare, through global communities."

We achieve this by providing KNOWLEDGE building our NETWORK and giving you a VOICE

Over the past year, ISQua has extended its presence in all the regions of the WHO. I want to thank ISQua’s Officers, Board members, Academy Members and ISQua Experts for helping to spread ISQua vision.

Incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his cabinet members launched in 2016 several audacious policies to boost Japan’s economy, which has been suffering economically for more than two decades. Surprisingly, it turned out that one of these policies was closely related to me i.e. “Working Style Reform” included “Physician”.

In the last 10 years, a lot has happened around the world as far as healthcare quality and patient safety is concerned.

This includes efforts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the epitome of healthcare-related enterprise, to Ministries of Health, and down to single-doctor clinics.

These efforts cover the most developed nations as well as least developed. Huge praise should be given to leaders at all levels for driving the agenda.

Australia, the world's oldest continent is a product of the Dreamtime when the ancients known as the First Peoples travelled across the great southern land of Bandaiyan, creating and naming as they went. The Dreaming, as it is known, is the origin of spiritual values and reverence for country.    

Myself, and several members of the ISQua Board (Shin Ushiro, Jeffrey Braithwaite, Cliff Hughes, David Vaughan and Steve Clark, via video link) had the privilege of speaking and chairing sessions at the Quality in Healthcare Summit held on Friday, 22^nd March in Dublin, organized by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and supported by ISQua.  Over 150 registrants attended including clinicians and other healthcare leaders from Dublin and the surrounding area.