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.
LinkedIn has made it easier than ever to add the IHI Open School Basic Certificate to your profile. Now, you can do it with one click. If you’ve already completed the 16 essential courses required to earn the Basic Certificate in Quality & Safety, click here to share your accomplishment with your professional network. Interested in earning this recognition? Learn more on the Open School web site.
Imagine that your spouse just had surgery to remove a brain tumor, and you’ve been waiting for the doctor to tell you how it went. What would you want to hear? Last week, we shared an emotional video illustrating the do’s and don’ts of delivering bad news to patients. This week, our featured video teaches how to communicate a disappointing outcome to patients. A physician and an actor playing the patient’s wife show why verbal and nonverbal communication matter to patients and families. Try showing these videos in a group setting and using our discussion questions to start a conversation.
When a patient came into a hospital with an infected pressure ulcer, providers wondered what nursing home allowed the injury to happen. Then they found out she lived at home. For years, as her dementia worsened, her children followed her wishes to never be put in a home. “From the looks of it, they had struggled and failed to keep her off that gigantic sore for months,” writes ethicist Dr. Abigail Zuger in The New York Times. What is the right thing to do for patients whose best interests conflict with their explicit wishes? Learn how to navigate conversations about end-of-life care in our course.
Community Updates
Welcome, New Chapters
Barking, Havering & Redbridge NHS Trust, Essex, England
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Canada
Grupo Hospitales San Angel Inn, Mexico City, Mexico
Need another reason to go to the IHI National Forum next month? Looking for more ways to make the most of your time there? We’ve got you covered. Here are some of the great (free with your general enrollment!) events that await:
Test your skills at the 8th Annual IHI Open School Chapter Congress — Connect with students, faculty, and improvement experts including Dr. Don Berwick during an interactive simulation of a quality improvement project called the Virtual Practicum.
Mingle at the Student and Faculty Reception — Network with Forum faculty presenters at an exclusive event for students and faculty just after the Congress.
Celebrate the IHI Open School Change Agent Network — Join this lunch session to celebrate the I-CAN community achieving its goal of engaging 30,000 people in actions to improve population health.
Being a doctor wasn’t always an attractive career option in Argentina. But the work environment is improving, in part thanks to the quality and safety movement. On the Open School blog, we’re featuring one of the Open School Regional Leaders who has contributed to this change: Dr. Ezequiel García Elorrio, Director of the Department of Health Care Quality and Safety at the Institute of Clinical and Health Effectiveness in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
