Salazar C. Out in the field. DOCTalk. July/August 2008.

In this interview Maureen Bisognano, Executive Vice President and COO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, talks about the philosophy behind her drive to improve health care. She credits in-the-field observation and international cooperation as the keys to improving health care on a large scale.

McCannon J, Bisognano M. The American health care system is in pieces — but some of the pieces are doing remarkably well. The Huffington Post. August 5, 2008.

Despite the findings of The Commonwealth Fund's 2008 National Scorecard on US Health System Performance, IHI's Joe McCannon and Maureen Bisognano remind us that we can learn from the parts of the system that are performing exceedingly well to make meaningful progress.

Berwick DM. A transatlantic review of the NHS at 60. British Medical Journal. 2008 Jul;337(7663):212-214.

In his remarks at the 60th anniversary celebration of the UK's National Heatlh Service (NHS) in July 2008, IHI President and CEO Don Berwick comments on the NHS journey to achieve world-class health care excellence and makes ten suggestions for the future.

Kroch E, Vaughn T, Koepke M, Roman S, Foster D, Sinha S, Levey S. Hospital boards and quality dashboards. Journal of Patient Safety. 2006 Mar;2(1):10-19.

The goals of this study were to assess the content and composition of hospital board dashboards, to examine how board dashboards are created and used by various constituencies in the hospital, and to identify structures and processes related to dashboard systems that most directly influence QI.

Vaughn T, Koepke M, Kroch E, Lehrman W, Sinha S, Levey S. Engagement of leadership in quality improvement initiatives: Executive Quality Improvement Survey results. Journal of Patient Safety. 2006 Mar;2(1):2-9.

This article evaluates the results of a survey to identify the characteristics of hospital leadership engagement in quality improvement that are most likely to strengthen quality improvement activities within hospitals.

Denham CR. Leaders need dashboards, dashboards need leaders. Journal of Patient Safety. 2006 Mar;2(1):45-53.

Performance dashboards are rapidly evolving hospital leadership decision support tools. This article describes market forces that will require hospital leaders to be directly involved in development of such tools.

ECRI Institute. Incentives for patient safety: Holding healthcare executives accountable. Risk Management Reporter. 2008 Aug;27(4):1-10.

This article discusses the responsibility and accountability for quality improvement and safety in health care organizations from the top down: from the governing board, to CEOs and other executives, to all staff. Patient safety and quality measures, challenges to implementing such efforts, and the future of governing board involvement and executive accountability are discussed. The article includes six activities all boards should do to improve quality and safety, as recommended by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Shared with the permission of the ECRI Institute.

Conway J, McCannon J, Gunther-Murphy C. The new challenge in patient safety: Transforming leadership infrastructure through widespread board engagement. Healthcare Executive. 2008 Jul/Aug;23(4):62-66.

It is time to take leadership improvement in health care to an even higher level. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is asking the nation’s hospitals to do something even more transformative in the remaining months of the 5 Million Lives Campaign: By December 2008, double the number of hospitals whose boards have committed to making harm reduction a top priority.

Berry LL, Seltman KD
New York, New York: McGraw-Hill; 2008

This book describes how Mayo Clinic, a complex service organization, fosters a culture that exceeds customer expectations and earns deep loyalty from both customers and employees. Includes how Mayo Clinic implements and maintains its strategy, adheres to its management system, executes its care model, and embraces new knowledge.

Berwick DM, Nolan TW, Whittington J. The Triple Aim: Care, health, and cost. Health Affairs. 2008 May/June;27(3):759-769.

Improving the US health care system requires simultaneous pursuit of three aims: improving the experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing per capita costs of health care. Preconditions for this include the enrollment of an identified population, a commitment to universality for its members, and the existence of an organization (an "integrator") that accepts responsibility for all three aims for that population.