Strategic Initiatives — Select below to learn more.
The Conversation Project and "Conversation Ready"
The goal of The Conversation Project is both simple and transformative: to have every person’s end-of-life wishes expressed and respected. Health care organizations are also working with IHI to become "Conversation Ready."
Danish Safer Hospital Program
Five selected hospitals in Denmark have committed to optimize patient safety in their clinical settings and to become the safest hospitals in the country. The Danish Safer Hospital Program aims to reduce mortality by 15% and harm by 30%.
Healthy Employees, Lower Premiums and Costs
This initiative seeks to engage five to ten alliances from across the US that comprise participants from multiple sectors (employers, employee unions, health plans, and health care providers and systems) who will work together to lower costs to employers and their employees while improving employees’ health and their experience with the health care system — IHI’s Triple Aim.
IHI Triple Aim
The IHI Triple Aim is an IHI learning initiative to better understand new models that can improve the individual patient experience and the health of entire communities, at a reasonable per capita cost.
Impacting Cost + Quality
Leaders from pioneering organizations have come together to work on the most significant health care leadership challenge of our time. They are identifying and driving out waste in their systems while improving the quality of care delivered to patients.
Improving Patient Care for Indian Health Service
This initiative aims to improve health and promote wellness for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The adapted Chronic Care Model serves as a framework to improve the health status of patients and populations by reducing the prevalence and impact of multiple conditions.
MaiKhanda in Malawi
MaiKhanda is a collaboration between IHI, Women and Children First, the University College London's Institute of Child Health, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and the Reproductive Health Unit of the Ministry of Health. MaiKhanda, which began in 2006, is supported by The Health Foundation (based in the UK) and focuses on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality.
Project Fives Alive! in Ghana
Project Fives Alive! began in 2008 and is a collaboration between IHI and the National Catholic Health Service. The project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, works to assist Ghana in achieving Millennium Development Goal 4 (reducing morbidity and mortality in children under five).
Improving Health Care Quality in South Africa
IHI’s work in South Africa began in 2004 and has since then grown to include programs in five provinces. In collaboration with local partners, the projects have contributed to the evolution of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV/AIDS, and increased access to treatment and testing of HIV/AIDs.
The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage
The Joint Learning Network (JLN) is focused on assisting 10 countries in Asia and Africa that are striving to provide universal health coverage to their populations.
This 5-year program began in the Spring of 2009 aiming to dramatically improve safety for patients and to become respected leaders from which others may learn.
IHI's ongoing work and programs focused on patient- and family-centered care are aimed at building will and exploring best practices for engaging patients and family members in improving care, while building a network of patient and family advisors whose experience is combined with advanced skills in collaborating for improvement.
Project JOINTS (Joining Organizations IN Tackling SSIs) is an initiative funded by the federal government to spread the Enhanced SSI Prevention Bundle (also known as the Enhanced Surgical Bundle). The Enhanced Surgical Bundle is designed to prevent Surgical Site Infections in patients undergoing hip and knee arthroplasty.
IHI’s Quality and Innovation Center strategy has two components: support for select entities around the world to become resources and leaders for improvement in their systems and regions; and a network, linking these entities together, devoted to increasing the pace and scale of improvement worldwide.
Safer Patients Network
Launched in June 2009, the Safer Patients Network in the UK continues to build on the safety expertise gained in the Safer Patients Initiative. The focus of the Safer Patients Network is to develop and test new approaches to patient safety, build improvement capability within the health system, and spread safety improvements across the national systems in the UK.
Scottish Patient Safety Programme NHSScotland is the first health service in the world to adopt a national approach to improving patient safety. Acute hospitals across the country are taking part in a dedicated drive to ensure that patients receive even safer care by reliably introducing evidence-based changes to practice.
STate Action on Avoidable Rehospitalizations (STAAR) The STate Action on Avoidable Rehospitalizations (STAAR) initiative aims to reduce rehospitalizations by working across organizational boundaries in three states — Massachusetts, Michigan, and Washington — and by engaging payers, state and national stakeholders, patients and families, and caregivers at multiple care sites and clinical interfaces.