Also: WIHI on Graduate Medical Education and a Special Opportunity at the Forum
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September 17, 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 improvers, we’re often looking for signals of system failure. But finding them requires knowing what systems look like (or sound like) when they function as intended. In this new video resource, Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, IHI President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, tells the story of a 4-year-old boy on the verge of needing emergency care. Find out what happens and discuss the story with your Chapter.
In next week’s WIHI talk show, experts will discuss graduate medical education and the Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) program, which calls for unprecedented involvement of trainees in quality and safety initiatives. You’ll hear as leaders at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), Cambridge Health Alliance, and Boston Medical Center discuss ways to integrate residents into the CLER focus areas: Patient Safety, Quality Improvement, Transitions in Care, Supervision, Duty Hours Oversight, and Professionalism. Enroll for free in the live program taking place on September 24 at 2 pm ET. (If you’re unable to make the live program, you can also listen to the recording from our archives after the show.)
Antibiotics can’t cure viral infections, including the common cold. But a new study shows that doctors are often prescribing antibiotics to children with respiratory infections when they won’t make an impact. Researchers reviewed studies between 2001 and 2011 and found that doctors prescribe the drugs about twice as much as they should — resulting in as many as 11.4 million unnecessary prescriptions each year. Not only is this wasteful, but overuse of antibiotics can lead to growth of medication-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs.” Read the article via ABC News, and learn how to minimize waste and overuse in our newest course, QCV 100: An Introduction to Quality, Cost, and Value.
Community Updates
Welcome, New Chapters
Schools Without Borders, Inc. Sierra Leone, Africa
This year, the IHI Open School is inviting students and residents to share their quality improvement (QI) projects at IHI’s largest conference of the year — without paying the registration fee. We’re looking for four outstanding QI projects to feature as storyboards in a special workshop session where health professionals can see and discuss the impact and quality of student work. The students behind the winning projects will receive free admission to the 26th Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care, which takes place in Orlando, FL, USA, from December 7–10. To apply for this opportunity, submit your storyboard proposal and final poster by October 1.
