Institute For Healthcare Improvement

This Week at IHI
A quality improvement initiative for obstetric care

A Quality Improvement Initiative to Reduce High Rates of C-Sections
A new study in Obstetrics & Gynecology shares the results of an initiative to increase the frequency of vaginal delivery in Brazilian hospitals in response to high rates of cesarean sections. 28 hospitals participated in a 20-month IHI Breakthrough Series Collaborative, testing and refining strategies that can inform other efforts to decrease unnecessary c-sections around the globe.

Root Cause Analysis Won’t Work if People Fear It
Richard Guthrie, Chief Quality Officer at Ochsner Health System, knows what it feels like to participate in a root cause analysis (RCA). Many health care systems use RCA to learn how and why errors occur. Guthrie writes that without an empathetic approach, welcoming error as a tool for improvement, the process may do more harm than good.

Tools and Resources to Coordinate Your Population Health Effort
It’s challenging to coordinate work to improve health, well-being, and health equity. New tools and resources from Pathways to Population Health (P2PH), funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, can help. Recent additions include a Getting Started Guide, case studies from organizations that have used the P2PH Framework, and information about an Action Community program that launches in April.
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Become an IHI Premium or Premium Plus Member. Get the resources, tools, education, and networking opportunities you and your organization need to build quality improvement and patient safety capabilities.

Breakthrough Series College
March 31–April 2 | Boston, MA, USA 
April 20–22 | London, England 
This powerful three-day program is designed to help you adapt proven methods to spread outstanding improvements across your organization, using the BTS Collaborative methodology.

IHI Fellowship Program
Begins August 2020 
Applications are open for the 2020–2021 IHI Fellowship Program, designed to take your strategic, operational, and thought leadership skills to the next level. Submit your application by May 29.
The key to staffing for optimal hospital flow
Five Items Worth a Click

• Video: The key to staffing for optimal hospital flow
An emergency medicine physician shares why leaders, nurses, and physicians need to work together to improve hospital flow.

• Which way is north? Setting your compass for population health
To learn how to create a comprehensive population health strategy that unfolds over time, join the February 13 WIHI broadcast, featuring Betsey Rhynhart and IHI’s Trissa Torres.

• Presuming innocence: Bryan Stevenson on justice and health care
Bryan Stevenson is founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, an attorney, and author of the best-selling book Just Mercy. He describes the connections between improving health care and fighting injustice, including the need for compassion and the risk of burnout.

• Eliminating medication overload
The Lown Institute has released a national action plan with recommendations on how to protect older adults in the US from medication harm.

• Stories of improving behavioral health care in the ED and upstream
How can emergency departments better support patients in crisis because of behavioral health conditions? A new IHI White Paper shares early results and improvement stories from seven health systems, who worked on implementing changes in their emergency departments over 18 months.

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