Intensive care is highly complex and expensive. Despite numerous local improvements in various elements of ICU care, many promising improvements remain unused, fragmented, isolated, and dispersed.  Errors occur in our ICUs at unacceptable rates.

By implementing a system-wide model of care and developing a skilled, coordinated, and collaborative care team, organizations can establish new systems of ICU care that will produce better clinical outcomes, lower costs, improved satisfaction, better coordination of care, and enhanced communication with all hospital areas and departments.

The purpose of this How-to Guide is to help organizations reduce health-care-associated infections, including infections due to antibiotic-resistant organisms, by improving hand hygiene practices and use of gloves among health care workers.

System Failure versus Personal Accountability: The Case for Clean Hands

In this article, the author makes the case that safer care requires both system improvements and increased personal accountability for hand hygiene.

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On Demand: Effective Teamwork as a Care Strategy — SBAR and Other Tools for Improving Communication Between Caregivers  

Available at your convenience, free of charge

This IHI On Demand presentation features Michael Leonard, MD, teaching the SBAR (Situation-Backgroun-Assessment-Recommendation) approach and other tools and behaviors for effective teamwork and communication to help ensure clear, accurate information between caregivers.

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