The founders of Care-Metric Ltd are Jan and Marian Weststrate.
Jan holds a PhD in nursing and regularly publishes articles in national and international journals. He has over 20 years nursing experience in intensive care, guiding patients and families through complex and critical transitions of life. Through Care-Metric he organises quality improvement workshops for rest homes in New Zealand. He also evaluates aged-care audit reports to recommend what aspects of care need to be addressed at a national level.
Marian has more than 40 years nursing experience in New Zealand and the Netherlands. She has first-hand care experience in rest homes, in the community and in hospitals. As a district nurse on the Kapiti Coast, Marian is a passionate advocate for her clients beyond the care system itself and direct nursing support.
Our Mission
To inspire, train and support health care management and professionals to continuously improve their care outcomes, increase safety and reduce costs.
Our Values
Transparency: we will act in an open and honest manner with our customers.
Innovation: We will bring evidence based/best practices interventions into the equation to achieve better outcomes.
Creativity: We recognise that “one size does not fit all” and will strive for new solutions as well as continuous improvement.
Respect: We will honour our customers’ kaupapa, in light of the organisational and cultural context in which they work.
Our way of working
Care- Metric Ltd employs the quality and safety improvement processes of Walter Shewhart and Edward Deming. In the later years of his life Deming developed his “system of profound knowledge” (SoPK). He argued that each manager needs to look through this lens in order to manage business processes (including improvement) effectively.
The quadrants
- Knowledge of a system: Understanding the interaction between all of the processes that take place within a system;
- Knowledge of variation: Understanding the range and causes of variation in each of the organisation’s process;
- Theory of knowledge: Understanding the concept of knowledge and its influence on change;
- Knowledge of human behaviour: Understanding the influence of people on change.
These two videos by Robert Lloyd from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement explain all this in more depth, using the useful example of hand-washing compliance.
Care-Metric also employs the tried-and-true PLAN-DO-STUDY-ACT cycle to manage improvement initiatives. Improvement does not happen overnight and is often referred to as a continuous process. Improvement can only take place when changes are made, however these changes can have a destabilising effect on the organisation. Allowing changes in small steps will reduce this risk and help build support within the organisation. Going through multiple P-D-S-A cycles will brings the organisation together, helping it move successfully in a new direction.
Let’s begin!
Contact us and we’ll help you build a plan for continuous improvement!
Alternatively, call us on 021 897 605 or email jan@care-metric.com.
