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.
Improvement science didn’t begin in health care, but it has helped health professionals around the world make meaningful, positive changes to patient care and systems in which they work. In a new video short, Improvement Advisor David Williams shares why the will to change, alone, is not enough to create change — and presents the ambulance industry as an example. Learn more in QI 202: Quality Improvement in Action: Stories from the Field.
When Mike Posencheg, MD, Medical Director of the Intensive Care Nursery at the University of Pennsylvania, had double hip replacement surgery, he woke up with a dislocated hip, nausea, and a plummeting heart rate. Dr. Posencheg recovered, but remained largely in the dark about the details of what happened. No one asked about his experience or told him whether the team learned from the adverse event. From this experience, Dr. Posencheg believes patients must be included in the process of improving patient safety. “When police investigate an automobile accident, don’t they speak to the drivers?” he writes. Read more about how Dr. Posencheg is working to engage patients in safety on the IHI Blue Shirt Blog.
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are making for grumpy doctors, grumpy patients, and new safety issues. But they are still better than the old pen-and-paper system, writes Dr. Robert Wachter, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, in a New York Times op-ed. “This computerization of health care has been like a car whose spinning tires have finally gained purchase. We were so accustomed to staying still that we were utterly unprepared for that first lurch forward.” To improve, Dr. Wachter says, the health care system will have to change the way clinicians work and make the software more user-friendly. Learn more about using technology to improve safety in PS 102: Human Factors and Safety.
Community Updates
Welcome, New Chapters
Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, UK
When Regional Leader Andy Carson-Stevens first joined the Open School community, he helped organize a global patient safety campaign to promote use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. “When I discovered the Open School, I found the courage to confront the status quo — but peacefully. Thought leader and educator Helen Bevan talks about rocking the boat and staying in it. This is exactly what the Open School helped me to do,” Dr. Carson-Stevens says. Check out our new blog post to learn why he got into health care, what he advises new Chapters, and how he’s used PDSA cycles to perfect his Spotify playlists.
