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September 3, 2014
The IHI Open School is an innovative learning community where you can take free online courses, earn certificates, network with peers and experts, and gain confidence and skills in quality improvement and patient safety to change health care.
As the academic year begins, we’d like to offer some inspiration about why we care about quality improvement — our patients. By the age of 7, Lauren Sampson had already been hospitalized more than 50 times. She was frustrated by her care — providers entering her room without explaining who they were, or nurses promising that a shot wouldn’t hurt when, in fact, it did. So, Lauren came up with a list of instructions for care providers, which she taped to her hospital room door. Read Lauren’s List and do the activity with your Chapter (or on your own) to get inspired for a new year of improving health care.
Are you a full-time student and an improvement champion? Apply for the David Calkins Memorial Scholarship to attend IHI’s 26th Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care from December 7–10 in Orlando, Florida. The Calkins Scholarship covers general conference fees as well as $1,000 of expenses for travel, lodging, and additional sessions, such as Learning Labs or Minicourses.
To apply, write an essay of 500 words or fewer describing a quality improvement project that you’ve done or would like to do. Submit your essay before the October 10 deadline, and a committee at IHI will review all applications and choose one winner. Click here to learn more about this and other scholarship opportunities to attend the Forum.
Remember the controversy over “death panels”? Despite the political battle over coverage of conversations between doctors and patients on end-of-life care, The New York Times reports that more insurers are now looking to cover them. Many patients in the aging US population want more input into their care at the end of life, and the American Medical Association is recommending that Medicare cover visits to discuss the matter. Read the full story, “Coverage for End-of-Life Talks Gaining Ground.” You can learn how to handle these talks through the IHI Open School’s course, Having the Conversation: Basic Skills for Having the Conversation about End-of-Life Care.
Community Updates
Welcome, New Chapters
Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion Salvador Zubiran, Districto Federal, Mexico
A complex patient, a family fight, and a pile of medical bills: Whatshould providers do to improve care for 69-year-old Harlan Reeves? Four students at the University of Washington analyzed this fictional case at the University of Minnesota’s annual Clarion National Case Competition — and won! We talked with Nicole Kim, an MD/MPH candidate on the winning interprofessional team, to learn more about their success. “The collaboration taught me both how much and how little I knew about improving health care quality,” Kim says. Read more on the IHI Open School blog.