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.
The IHI Open School has just published its first course on health equity, with support from IHI’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. The two-hour course explores health disparities — what they are, why they occur, and how health students and professionals can help reduce them in their local settings. Short case studies of interventions in health care and outside the clinical setting demonstrate several ways to reduce disparities. The module concludes with suggestions about what students and professionals can do to help achieve health equity. Take the course, and then take action.
Last month, the son of a woman who died after heart surgery walked in Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and shot the cardiologist who did the operation. In a poignant piece in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, Lisa Rosenbaum, MD, reflects on the death of Michael Davidson, MD, drawing a distinction between bad outcomes and medical error. She outlines the danger of comparing health care to the aviation industry: “The analogy between airplanes and hospitals is seriously flawed: People don't get on airplanes because they would otherwise die.” What do you think? Does the analogy risk confusing preventable harm with unavoidable bad outcomes and the inevitability of death? We’d like to hear from you. Post your thoughts on the Open School Facebook page or reply on Twitter.
Poster abstracts are due by February 17 for the third annual Health Quality Symposium at the Scotiabank Convention Centre on April 30th in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. This full-day event, hosted in part by the Brock University Open School Chapter, is a great opportunity for health professionals, researchers, and students to learn from and network with individuals who are passionate about improving health care quality. Awards will be given for several poster categories, including “Best Student Poster.”
In a new Arnold P. Gold Foundation program, health students and providers are asking patients about their lives. The effort, known as “Tell Me More,” is working to re-humanize medicine by asking patients to answer three questions: What are your strengths? How would your friends describe you? What has been most meaningful to you? The responses are then posted near patients’ beds, inviting conversations that build relationships between providers and patients. Learn more here.
