The IHI Improvement Map is an open resource, available free of charge for anyone, anywhere who share's IHI's mission of improving health care.
IHI also offers fee-based programs to help hospitals make the most of the Improvement Map with more intensive support, including Passport, Collaboratives, and the IMPACT Leadership Community.
Take a video tour of the Improvement Map
Discussion Groups
Join the Improvement Map Discussion Groups to help IHI build dynamic communities of learning and support. Pose questions, offer new ideas, describe your improvement success stories and experiences, and share tips with your peers for taking full advantage of all the Improvement Map has to offer.
Improvement Map key processes handout
Silverlight Guide Learn more about the web application needed to use the Improvement Map, including troubleshooting tips and information for your IT department.
How far has your organization come on its improvement journey? Use the Improvement Map to do a gap analysis.
Stories from Improvement Map users
Organizations and Individuals who contributed to development of the Improvement Map
Navigation Guide to the Improvement Map Tool
- Overview: How to use the tool and features
- Terminology
Overview: How to use the tool and features
The Improvement Map is your tool for identifying the key processes for improving hospital quality, organizing your improvement efforts, and getting the information you need to get started. As of September 2009, it contains 70 patient care and organizational processes that both experience and evidence suggest will lead to better outcomes. You can use the map to answer your questions about hospital quality and get started on improvement.
If you Browse All Processes…
You will see the complete list of processes on the Improvement Map.
Click on a process to get more detailed information…
To use the filter feature…
From the “Browse All” page customize your search using any combination of ten filters: Cost to Implement, Time to Implement, Difficulty to Implement, Level of Evidence, Aim, Domain, Outcome, Service Lines and Critical Functions, Financial Implications, and Requirements, Standards, Policies, and Guidelines. Results of your search will display in real-time.
Terminology
Aims: The aspect of quality a process addresses. Based on the six Institute of Medicine (IOM) dimensions of quality articulated in the 2001 landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm.
- Effective: An evidence-based practice that produces better outcomes than its alternative
- Efficient: The appropriate use of resources at the least expense to the patient, provider, and care setting
- Equitable: Care delivered fairly, with consideration to need, and with no other discriminating factors
- Patient Centered: Care throughout a patient’s experience that is coordinated, informed, and grounded in respectful interactions with care providers that are consistent with the patient’s values, expectations, and care decisions
- Safe: Delivery of care in a manner that minimizes any risk of harm to a patient
- Timely: Care delivery that is prompt and provided without delay to mitigate any harm to a patient
Cost to Implement: The monetary resources required to implement a process
Difficulty to Implement: The challenges of implementing a process
Domain: The aspect of hospital operations a process addresses
- Patient Care Processes: Clinical processes that ensure delivery of high-quality care to individual patients
- Processes to Support Care: Processes that are essential to support and maintain the delivery of care to all types of patients, across all units and settings in the hospital
- Leadership and Management Processes: Processes that leaders and managers maintain every day to lead the organization, ensure efficient and effective operations, and foster improvement
Financial Implications: Anticipated financial outcomes if a process is implemented
Level of Evidence: The degree to which the actions in a process are supported by research and experience, as defined by the Cochrane Scale
Outcome: Anticipated results if a process is implemented
Process: Discrete topic areas, similar to the 12 interventions from the 5 Million Lives Campaign, that are designed for a hospital to implement in order to leverage improvement changes. Processes can be implemented either individually or in tandem.
Service Lines and Critical Function: Hospital services, settings, and functions where a process is applicable
Time to Implement: The amount of time, from months to years, it will take on average to implement a process
Requirements, Standards, Policies, and Guidelines: Requirements, standards, policies, and guidelines related to a process
