Quality Institute for Self Management Education & Training

QISMET– The Quality Institute for Self Management Education and Training – is the independent certificating body for organisations providing self management and self care programmes.

Set up in 2009, QISMET'S role is to provide external verification and certification that self management education and training programmes are organised and delivered to the highest possible standards.

QISMET'S purpose is to ensure that the standards and certification processes it develops can be applied to all organisations providing self management interventions. The overall aim is to increase the number and quality of programmes across the sector and encourage a plurality of trusted providers.

The QISMET Quality Mark                                               

Organisations that achieve certification will carry the QISMET logo with the intention that, over time, the ‘QI’ mark will become as familiar a guarantee of assured quality within the self management sector as the BSI kitemark is in industry.

QISMET Standards and Certification

SS2Q

The prototype quality mark certification scheme that QISMET has developed to date is for lay led self management programme providers which deliver courses licensed by Stanford University, USA. The standard providers are certificated against is  Stepping Stones to Quality (Ss2Q). This is now being used in the West Midlands where a number of PCTs have made QISMET certification a criterion for commissioning organisations that provide the Chronic Disease Self Management Programme (CDSMP) courses. The first cohort of QISMET auditors has been recruited and trained, and the initial audits will start taking place from late November 2010.

Diabetes Structured Patient Education Certification and Standards(DSE)

QISMET has begun to develop DSE standards and certification process to assure the delivery of consistently high quality diabetes self management education within local systems of care. The first draft of these standards is now out for consultation and the pilot phase will take place in spring 2011.

Potential Universal QISMET Standard

Preliminary exploration is planned to begin early in 2011 to establish the potential for a universal QISMET Standard, which will be applicable to all types of self management and patient education programme providers.

 For more information

Go to the QISMET website: http://www.qismet.org.uk/

To sign up for the QISMET e-newsletter, email info@qismet.org.uk