Collaboratives

​​​​IHI’s most intensive improvement work happens in Collaboratives. These 10- to 12-month programs are designed for organizations committed to achieving sustainable change within a specific topic area. Through shared learning, teams from a variety of organizations work with each other and IHI faculty to rapidly test and implement changes that lead to lasting improvement.​

Current Collaboratives

IHI Health Improvement Alliance Europe
Next wave begins September 2021

The IHI Health Improvement Alliance Europe is a coalition of progressive leaders who are united for change, driven by collaboration, and focused on achieving health and health care results in Europe. The group aims to improve work processes, create new delivery models relevant to European health systems, and achieve best health and best care at affordable cost in the face of changing demographics, increasing chronic illness, escalating costs, and shrinking government and regional budgets.

IHI Leadership Alliance​
Next wave begins October 2021

Patients, families, providers, and communities are looking for health care leaders with a new level of courage and optimism. Leaders who believe that now, perhaps more than ever before, we must change the dialogue about health care from one that focuses on reimbursement and regulation to one that makes the pursuit of health and healing paramount. The IHI Leadership Alliance is a dynamic collaboration of health system executives and teams who share a mission to work with one another, as well as in partnership with our patients, workforces, and communities, to deliver on the full promise of the IHI Triple Aim.

IHI Joy in ​Work Results-Oriented Learning Network

The ​Joy in Work Results-Oriented Learning Network​ is intended for health care professionals who are looking to boost joy in work, increase staff engagement and productivity, and improve overall quality of care and experience for staff and patients. It is dedicated to organizations willing to learn, test, and implement at-scale strategies to drive meaningful and measurable progress to improve the joy of their workforce.

​Past Collaboratives and Communities

Better Health and Lower Costs for Patients with Complex Needs

Completed June 2016

Health care organizations across the US and the world recognize that a small percentage of the population generates a disproportionately large portion of health care costs. To accelerate the improvement of care for complex and high-cost patients, this 12-month Collaborative focused on identifying and implementing comprehensive care designs that serve the needs of the most complex, high-risk, and costly patients, resulting in better health outcomes, a better care experience, and lower total cost.

 

Optimize Primary Care Teams to Meet Patients' Medical AND Behavioral Needs: An IHI Collaborative

Completed January 2016

In order to effectively treat the whole person, primary care must build high-functioning practice teams and seamlessly integrate behavioral health capacity into the team. In this 12-month Collaborative, IHI in partnership with the MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation, aimed to design the next generation of high-performing primary care teams to address patients' medical and behavioral health conditions and treat the whole person.

 

Perinatal Improvement Community: An IHI Collaborative

Completed June 2015

The Perinatal Improvement Community provides results-focused improvement opportunities, focusing on implementing structures and processes that will lead to improved outcomes in three areas, in particular: reducing elective inductions prior to 39 weeks, reporting on the Perinatal Core Measure Set, and reversing the trend of rising Cesarean-section rates. Teams engage in rapid testing of changes that have been shown to improve care, adapting them to their own settings, and constantly measuring the outcomes.

 

Conversation Ready Health Care Community

Completed October 2014

In 2012, IHI and a group of end-of-life experts and concerned health care organizations launched the “Conversation Ready” initiative to be responsive to the work of The Conversation Project. Together, this group committed to establishing what it means for a health care organization to be “Conversation Ready." This nine-month Community brought together pioneering organizations and expert faculty to move towards becoming Conversation Ready.

 

IHI Triple Aim Improvement Community

Completed June 2014

Whether your focus is global payments, accountable care organizations, the medical home, employee health, or creating coalitions to improve a community’s health, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, who pioneered the IHI Triple Aim framework, can help you develop and implement strategies to achieve results in line with the IHI Triple Aim. IHI will convene a collaborative learning community to simultaneously pursue results in the three dimensions of the IHI Triple Aim for designated populations, and for key health issues across geographic communities.


IHI Collaborative: Transforming Care at the Bedside

Completed August 2010

Hospitals participating in this Collaborative focused on engaging front-line staff, optimizing communication among care team members, supporting and involving patients and families, improving safety (for example, by preventing inpatient falls), reducing waste and improving key processes of care, creating patient-centered healing environments, and improving work environments through space redesign.

 

Learning and Innovation Community: Redesigning the Clinical Office Practice 

Completed August 2009

This community helped clinicians and staff in ambulatory care practices – including primary, specialty, and ancillary care – increase access to services and efficiency, and redesign for better outcomes of care. Programming focused on: improving access, efficiency, and the delivery of patient-centered planned care for patients with multiple and/or complex chronic conditions (such as heart failure, COPD, depression, and diabetes); and maps to the NCQA Standards and Guidelines for Physician Practice Connections® – Patient-Centered Medical Home (PPC–PCMH™).

 

Learning and Innovation Community: Improving Flow Through Acute Care

Completed August 2009

This community focused on impacting system-level change to improve flow through the hospital setting while maintaining or improving the current level of quality.

 

Learning and Innovation Community: Operational and Clinical Improvement in the Emergency Department

Completed August 2009

Unnecessary delays in emergency departments contribute to poor medical outcomes, frustrated and unhappy patients, increased cost from waste and rework, potential harm, and stress for both patients and caregivers. This community explored proven strategies to dramatically reduce operational cycle times and improve patient flow within the emergency department.

 

Learning and Innovation Community: Improving Outcomes for High-Risk and Critically Ill Patients

Completed August 2009

There is mounting evidence that reliable, timely and compassionate care for high-risk and critically ill people is achievable. The aim of this community was for hospitals to achieve improvements by focusing on specific units in the hospital and also addressing the entire system of care for high-risk and critically ill patients in the hospital.