This Week at IHI: the unique value of patient-reported measures, learning from Detroit, improving women's and infant health in Louisiana, and more

The Unique Value of Patient-Reported Measures Unlike the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) and other patient experience surveys, patient-reported measures (also known as patient-reported outcome measures) ask patients to assess their own functional health and well-being before and after a clinical treatment or procedure. According to IHI Vice President Kathy Luther, “Such data will be critical as we transition to a more value-based world that focuses on the management of population health.” In a new interview posted to the IHI blog, Luther − who helped develop the upcoming IHI Expedition on Using Patient-Reported Measures to Improve Care – describes the kinds of questions (e.g., Are you able to walk up and down the stairs? Are you able to maintain your own activities of daily living?) that differentiate patient-reported measures from other surveys. She also notes that the use of patient-reported measures is growing in the US in response to pressures to improve outcomes in both quality and cost.
Learning from Detroit With major changes underway in health care, proactively working with, and in, the communities and neighborhoods that lie beyond a hospital’s walls is essential to improving the health of patients and populations. The city of Detroit knows something about this. City planning authorities have partnered with leaders at Henry Ford Health System to bring together diverse communities and neighborhoods to work together on improving health. As a result of this close collaboration between the city and the health system, citizens of Detroit have seen better, more functional health. The IHI Learning Excursion: Detroit (October 8-10) will be an innovative and interactive way for others to learn firsthand about Detroit’s approach and experiences to date. IHI is developing Learning Excursions like this to help health care organizations identify ways to partner with governmental entities and other community assets to provide better care and improve health.
Improving Women’s and Infant Health in Louisiana In August 2010, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) launched the Birth Outcomes Initiative (BOI), with the goal of engaging community members and key stakeholders in the development of evidence-based practices to improve women’s and infant health. In a new article published in the Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge, DHH Secretary, Kathy Kliebert, provides an update on the BOI and its efforts to eliminate early elective deliveries before 39 weeks and significantly reduce Louisiana’s high rate of cesarean deliveries. Secretary Kliebert highlights the role IHI’s Perinatal Improvement Community is playing in the BOI, noting the Community’s emphasis on teaching quality improvement (QI) practices to staff in labor and delivery units so that they can implement structures and processes that lead to improved outcomes. One key benefit of teaching QI to these units is that today’s work prepares them to take on tomorrow’s challenges related to improving women’s and infant health.
IHI Focus Area Spotlight Improvement Capability: Evidence Scan on Health Care Improvement Collaboratives Person- and Family-Centered Care: Engaging Patients and Families in Multidisciplinary Rounds Patient Safety: Pharmacists in Dallas ER Help Reduce Adverse Drug Events Quality, Cost, and Value: Physicians Say Unnecessary Tests and Procedures Are a Serious Problem Triple Aim for Populations: Innovations in the Use of Information Technology Enhance Care Delivery

A video – "A Soul Doctor and a Jazz Singer" – featuring Dr. Lachlan Forrow, Director of Palliative Care Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Advisor to The Conversation Project, talking about what it means to his patients to have a good day

Recently posted resources from The Health Foundation (THF) related to improvement collaboratives, including an evidence scan on collaboratives in health care, and a blog post from THF Director of Staretgy, Jo Bibby: "Four lessons for running impactful collaboratives in health care"

Pulse-Voices from the Heart of Medicine is seeking visual submissions to the site (for examples of visual submissions, see this slide show)

Where's IHI this week?

IHI Executive Director Pedro Delgado and Senior Vice President Dr. Pierre Barker are in Brazil this week to meet with leaders at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein and participate in other stakeholder meetings.

Who's at IHI this week?

Dr. Fenna Heyning, Director of STZ Hospitals (The Netherlands), and Kris Vanhaecht, Secretary General of the European Pathway Association and Coordinator of the research group on quality of care and care pathways at KU Leuven (Belgium), are visiting this week to plan for a collaboration with IHI.

This Week at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement August 11, 2014