Background: Improving the quality of care contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals. Non-technical skills (NTS) such as leadership, teamwork, communication, and use of data for decision-making are the strong points of the learning process of collaboratives for quality improvement in health services.Objective: To evaluate the relationship between the collaboratives and the development of NTS by participating health professionals.Methods: We searched PUBMED, WEB OF SCIENCE, SCOPUS and GOOGLE SCHOLAR (the first 30 pages) and performed a manual search on the IHI (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) website, from Jan 2010 to Dec 2019, for articles published in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. IHI Breakthrough Series Collaborative model project studies with pre- and post-data, and SQUIRE compliant titles were included. The qualitative analysis evaluated the study design, year, country, context, target for improvement, health services, duration of intervention, number of participating professionals, evidence of improvement, effectiveness of the intervention, and NTSResults: From 701 identified abstracts, 34 studies were included for data extraction and qualitative analysis. Improvement of the intended results was reported by 76.5% (26/34), of which only 38.5% (10/26) showed sustainability for six or more months. Improvement in NTS was assessed in five studies, but none assessed their contribution to the dissemination and sustainability of improvement.Conclusions: Collaborative initiatives train professionals in improvement science to incorporate evidence-based practices. It is necessary to include, in the measurement plan of these improvement projects, the assessment of the NTS acquired by the professionals and its relationship with the results achieved, the dissemination level, and the success in terms of sustainability of those gains and best practices.Systematic review registration number: Prospero - CRD42020164190
