Institute for Healthcare Improvement: 16th Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care

The National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care is the premier "meeting place" for people committed to the mission of improving health care. This annual event draws approximately 4,000 health care leaders from around the world in person and an additional 6,000 via satellite.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the British Medical Journal Publications Group annually sponsor a European Forum and an Asia Pacific Forum as well.

The 2003 National Forum attracted 3,800 participants from a variety of health care and related fields. The participants included:

Senior Leaders (11%)
Quality Professionals (15%)
Clinician Managers (23%)
Managers and Directors of group practices, hospitals, and large health care systems (45%)

This year we are expecting over 4,000 participants in Orlando, Florida, and thousands more via satellite.

Past plenary speakers include:

Donald Berwick, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Paul O’Neill, Former US Secretary of the Treasury
Helen Bevan, PhD, Director of Service Redesign, NHS Modernisation Agency, UK
Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, Founder, Partners in Health
Benjamin Zander, Conductor, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
Paul Plsek, Paul E. Plsek & Associates
John Nance, ABC Correspondent
Joanne Lynn, MD, MA, MS, Center to Improve Care of the Dying

National Forum Co-Chairs

G. Ross Baker, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research focuses on the incidence of medical error and factors influencing patient safety in Canadian health care, and on the development and use of performance measurement and balanced scorecards in health care organizations. Ross led the development of Hospital Report, a performance measurement report on Ontario hospitals funded by the Ontario Hospital Association. He helped to found the CQI Network (now Quality Healthcare Network), an organization that includes over 70 health care organizations and affiliates. He is the Chair of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration, a Washington-based organization that serves graduate and undergraduate programs in health administration in North America and elsewhere. In November 2000, Ross was awarded the Regent’s Award of the American College of Healthcare Executives for contributions to excellence in health care management.

David H. Gustafson, PhD, is a Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Director of the National Cancer Institute designated Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications and Director of the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the federal government’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. His research focuses on the use of systems engineering methods and models in individual and organizational change. Over the last ten years his individual change research centered on developing and evaluating eHealth systems using as the test vehicle CHESS (the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System), a computer system to help people facing serious health problems with a particular focus on cancer. His randomized control trials and field tests of CHESS help understand acceptance, use and impact of eHealth on quality of life, behavior change and health services utilization. The addiction treatment field is currently his primary test bed for these organizational change initiatives. He is a Fellow of the Association for Health Services Research and of the American Medical Informatics Association, a Fellow and past Vice–Chair of the Board of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He also chaired the Federal Science Panel on Interactive Communications in Health and is Chair of the eHealth Institute. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Redesigning Health Insurance and the University of Wisconsin Athletic Board.

Rose Lindsey, MS, RN, RHIA, is the Administrator of Quality, Accreditation and Case Management at Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation in Memphis, Tennessee. In this role she provides leadership, strategic vision, development and implementation of programs related to Quality and Case Management for 17 hospitals, and oversees preparation of hospitals for JCAHO Accreditation for the entire organization. She has provided leadership in quality improvement for 24 years. A Registered Nurse and a Registered Health Information Management Administrator, Rose holds a Masters degree in Operations Management and is currently working towards a doctoral degree in Health Care Administration.

John Toussaint, MD, President and CEO, ThedaCare, Inc. in Appleton, Wisconsin, received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa. He later completed his medical degree at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. He completed his internal medicine residency at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, University of Iowa program. Dr. Toussaint is also the Chairman of the Wisconsin Collaboration for Healthcare Quality.