This year's National Forum will begin on Monday, December 8, and continue through Thursday, December 11. The complete program details will be available in September 2008.

Monday, December 8, and Tuesday, December 9: The National Forum offers Learning Labs and Minicourses, which are extended, highly interactive sessions. Learning Labs last for a half-day, while Minicourses are full-day sessions.  

Wednesday, December 10, and Thursday, December 11: The two-day General Conference features four keynote presentations, more than 100 workshops, a full resource Exhibition Hall, the National Forum Bookstore, quality improvement storyboards, and numerous opportunities for networking.

Personal Improvement Clinics, Thursday, December 11, 9:30am - 12:30pm:

New this year! Bring your improvement project or scenario to the National Forum and IHI Improvement Advisors and other national quality improvement experts will critique the project with your team! These clinics will focus on project improvement methods and provide you with hands-on, personalized guidance you can apply at home. Please complete the following survey with your name, organization, email address, project aim, and topics of interest that you would like to discuss during the clinic.

The Improvement Clinics will be held in the Ryman Ballroom on Thursday, December 11 during D and E sessions (9:30am – 12:30pm).  After filling out the survey below, you will receive a confirmation email asking you to choose a session.  The first session is during the D session and is from 9:30am – 10:45am and the second session is during the E session and is from 11:15am – 12:30pm. Please note that depending on what time you attend the Improvement Clinic, you may not be able to also attend either a D or E session.  Depending on demand, your session may be limited to no more than 15-20 minutes.

If you are interested in attending, please take the following survey: http://www.ihi.org/surveycenter/survey.aspx?surveyguid=97231adb-6cd8-43ff-8b56-da0670761bd0

Take Full Advantage of the National Forum Program
There are over 200 sessions offered at the National Forum. They are organized into the following "tracks," or content areas:

• Hospital Care
• Innovation and Spread
• Leadership and Governance
• Measurement, Tools, Technology, and Quality Processes
• Office Practices and Outpatient Settings
• Patient- and Family-Centeredness
• Patient Safety
• Student*
• Quality Improvement Research*
• Quality Improvement for Vulnerable Populations*

* New this year.

Additionally, you can organize your National Forum experience around the following themes:

• Fundamentals: For first-time attendees, this series of sessions offers great ideas and tools to get started in quality improvement.
• Masters: For those who have been attending for four or more years, this series of sessions will provide cutting-edge improvement strategies and tools from health care and other industries.
• Student: For health professions students new to quality improvement or new to the National Forum, we’ve selected sessions across a wide spectrum of topics and disciplines that will accelerate your capacity for quality improvement. In addition to this "student track," the "Fundamentals Program" is also appropriate for those new to the National Forum as it highlights sessions that offer helpful ideas and tools for getting started in quality improvement.
• Quality Improvement Research: This series of sessions introduces topics that address conceptual framework, research methods, measurement, and analysis of findings related to advancing the educational and scientific discipline of quality improvement.  The all-day Scientific Symposium, on Tuesday, December 9, is the cornerstone for this track. Participants are invited to join colleagues in all of these sessions in pursuit of models and methodological issues related to implementation science and publication in scholarly journals.
• Quality Improvement for Vulnerable Populations: This track features workshops and presentations from leaders in the safety net (public hospitals, community health centers, public health systems) who are demonstrating leading edge performance in clinical quality, patient safety, and access to populations who are underserved.  Specifically, topics include:  improvements in chronic care management, care for patients with health literacy challenges, services for patients with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), patient-centered approaches for culturally diverse populations, patient safety in large public institutions, and improved clinical outcomes for minority populations.  This track highlights the cutting edge work that is being pioneered by safety net institutions in addressing the “equity” domain of quality improvement in the IOM’s goals of a high performing health care system.