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.
What’s the one thing you would do to improve health care? We’re always curious about that question at IHI, so we hit the streets on a recent afternoon and asked people to share their opinions on camera. Check out what they said in our first installment of “Blue Shirt on the Street.” (On a mobile device? Click here to watch on YouTube.)
The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid will soon decide whether they will pay providers to have conversations about end-of-life care with their patients. Amy Berman, Senior Program Officer at The Hartford Foundation, which provided the founding grant for IHI, says these conversations were lifesaving for her. Berman has incurable breast cancer, and she and her doctor decided to forgo an aggressive treatment plan (a "Hail Mary") and pursue a “Niagara Falls” trajectory — good health for as long as possible, then a quick descent. Read her open letter in The Washington Post, and learn skills for these discussions in PFC 103: Having the Conversation: Basic Skills for Conversations about End-of-Life Care.
Community Updates
Welcome, New Chapters
Instituto Universitario de Ciencias Biomédicas de Córdoba (IUCBC) in Córdoba, Argentina
How can students and clinicians improve the health of their communities? Share your thoughtsin a Twitter chat from 3:00–4:00 PM ET today with IHI President Emeritus Dr. Don Berwick. Use the hashtag #ICANimprovehealth to join the conversation. You’ll also learn about the chance for your Chapter to compete in the upcoming I-CAN Pledge-A-Thon, which runs from October 15 to November 15.
This year, share your work with thousands of health care professionals through a storyboard at the IHI National Forum. The deadline to submit a storyboard about your Chapter, quality improvement project, or personal improvement project is October 15 — just a week away. All students who submit storyboards can participate in the Storyboard Reception, and four students whom IHI selects will earn the opportunity to present at a special session and receive a scholarship to the Forum. Learn more and apply here.
