Session 2a: Stories That Transform: Dr. Peter Lachman Champions Kindness as Healthcare’s Strategic Imperative

International healthcare quality expert Dr. Peter Lachman delivered a powerful keynote encouraging Africa's healthcare leaders to embrace kindness as the foundation of safer care. Drawing from decades of global experience, the former CEO of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) made the case that "patient safety should be in our DNA."

The Quality Evolution

Lachman outlined healthcare’s quality journey from compliance-based Quality Assurance (1.0) to improvement-focused Quality Improvement (2.0), culminating in Quality 3.0: co-production. “We can’t have person-based care without understanding what matters to patients,” he emphasized, noting that healthcare workers must treat patients on an individual basis and be present in the moment.

The Power of Storytelling

The session’s most compelling moment came when Lachman addressed a fundamental healthcare problem: “We take their story away from them.” He shared the story of Vivian, a nurse who brought a mango to an ICU patient who had been feeding tubes for months—a simple act that the patient said she’d “never forget.” Recalling the story, Lachman emphasized, “Small acts of kindness change everything.”

Audience Engagement Across Continents

Interactive table and online participant discussions revealed common barriers to kind care, with participants from Kenya to Nigeria identifying time constraints and system pressures as primary challenges. “How can you be kind when you’re busy?” Lachman was asked, and he responded: “You start being kind with your first patient, then the next one.”

Moving Forward

The consensus was clear: kindness must be intentional and systematically embedded in healthcare training and culture. Doctors can’t just treat patients as statistics, but people.