Updates for Our Learning Community
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January 7, 2015

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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.

This Year, Resolve to Improve Your Resolutions

Have you made a New Year’s Resolution yet? How is it going? Consider deploying the Model for Improvement to make your resolutions a reality. Check out these worksheets, borrowed from IHI CEO Maureen Bisognano’s class on quality improvement at the Harvard School of Public Health, which will guide you through the three questions comprising the Model for Improvement and help you run your first tests of change. Don’t just dream — do! And to learn more about improvement science, take our online course QI 102: The Model for Improvement: Your Engine for Change.

A Student’s Story: ‘I remember the fearful look in her eyes’

AlishaBWEach summer when she was growing up, IHI Open School student Alesha Wright visited her grandmother and great-aunts in Alabama. Living in a community with little access to education and health care, her grandmother prepared traditional foods for her family: fried chicken, collard greens with ham hocks, and sweet potato pies. Years later, her great-aunts suffered from diabetes. They injected themselves with insulin every day and lived with the fear of symptoms such as dizziness, shaking, confusion, and a pounding heartbeat. Now, Alesha is fighting diabetes in her community through the Open School’s new initiative, the Improvement Change Agent Network, or I-CAN. Read Alesha’s story and learn how to inspire others with narrative in our new eight-week course, Leadership and Organizing for Population Health. Applications are due January 15.

What We’re Reading: Look West for Progress in Health Equity

Health systems have made little progress in closing health disparities based on race in the United States. For example, in 2008, life expectancy in the US was about five years shorter for black people than white people. But a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that health systems in the West have helped eliminate racial disparities in three key risk factors for chronic disease: cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. How? By using a population-management approach that helped target patients in need of care. Read the story in NPR’s Shots blog, and learn more about population health in our short online course, TA 101: Introduction to Population Health.

Community Updates

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WELCOME, NEW CHAPTERS

Mountain View Hospital, Nevada, US
Mercy North, Ohio, US
University of Vermont, Vermont, US
Hospital San Angel Inn Sur, Mexico
 

Learning and Inspiration in London

Join more than 3,000 health professionals from 80 countries at the 2015 International Forum on Quality and Safety in Health Care, taking place from April 21–24 in London. Co-sponsored by IHI and the BMJ Publishing Group, the International Forum will benefit both beginners and veterans in quality improvement.

The IHI Open School has partnered with the BMJ to design special events for students and junior doctors, who are also welcome to submit storyboard abstracts for consideration. A limited number of scholarships are available for full-time students and faculty to attend with reduced registration fees. Click here to learn more about scholarships and storyboard proposals. The deadline to apply for each is March 13. 

QCV 100: An Introduction to Quality, Cost, and Value in Health Care
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