Overview

Patient Safety: Making care continually safer by reducing harm and preventable mortality.

Workforce Safety: Ensuring the safety and resiliency of the organization and the health care workforce — a workforce that is physically and psychologically safe, joyful, and thriving — is a necessary precondition to advancing patient safety.

Despite substantial effort over the past 20 years to improve patient safety, preventable harm in health care remains a major concern. Though many evidence-based, effective best practices related to harm reduction have been identified, they are seldom shared and implemented effectively across multiple organizations. In addition, more organizations are recognizing that the safety of the health care workforce is key to patient safety.

Advancing patient and workforce safety requires a total systems approach to safety — a persistent, coordinated effort by all stakeholders to eliminate harm to both patients and the health care workforce.

IHI focuses on innovations that create a total systems approach to safety, helping health care organizations and health systems move from silos of safety to systems of safety by enhancing reliability and resilience, and by working to embed safety into every system and setting within a patient’s care journey with the belief that patients and those who care for them can and should be free from harm.

IHI’s focus on patient and workforce safety includes:

Galvanizing health care leaders across the care continuum to advance patient and workforce safety: The National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety provides clear direction that health care leaders, delivery organizations, and associations can use to make significant advances toward safer care and reduced harm across the continuum of care. IHI offers guidance on and support for patient and workforce safety initiatives around the world.
Engaging leadership in change: IHI provides strategic guidance and innovative thinking to help leaders at all levels embrace, create, and implement tools and strategies that drive change.
Fostering cultures of safety: IHI provides tactical tools and frameworks to assess safety culture, identify areas for improvement, and implement system-wide changes that affect culture.
Building skills: IHI offers a range of programs to teach key safety and improvement skills at every level — from students to executives.

Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) Review Course
August 2 – 3, 2023

The Certified Professional in Patient Safety credential (CPPS) establishes core standards for the field and sets an expected proficiency level for those seeking to become professionally certified in patient safety.
Patient Safety Executive Development Program
Fall 2023 | Boston, MA

With today’s shrinking health care budgets and growing focus on costs, it has never been more important to have a robust safety plan. Maintaining a powerful safety program is essential to the long-term health of your department, organization, or health care system — and to ensuring that your patients receive the safe and reliable care they deserve. To position your organization for success, attend IHI’s Patient Safety Executive Development Program.
IHI Forum 2023
December 10–13, 2023 | Orlando, FL, USA

The IHI Forum is a four-day conference that has been the home of quality improvement (QI) in health care for more than 30 years. Attend this year's conference in Orlando, FL, USA.

Loading Pages....

Actions to Renew Focus on Safety Culture

Delivering the health care that our patients expect — in every setting and under all conditions — demands that we urgently revisit safety culture as the fundamental driver of both patient and workforce safety.
Turn on the Lights Podcast

Turn on the Lights podcast is IHI's thought-provoking series of candid conversations about how the US health care system is working and not working, hosted by Drs. Don Berwick and Kedar Mate.
Organizational Trustworthiness in Health Care

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement partnered with the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation to identify key organizational-level drivers and change ideas that repair, build, and strengthen trust between health care organizations and clinicians, and between health care organizations and the communities they serve. This report describes a theory of how to repair, build, and strengthen trust, presented as a three-step approach with specific change ideas and associated measures for improvement.
Using Machine Learning to Improve Patient Safety in the Home or Remote Setting for Adults

The primary aim of the IHI innovation project described in this report was to assess the use of predictive analytics, specifically machine learning, to improve patient safety through emerging and existing approaches to predict risk, such as technologies and decision support tools. Specific attention was given to how predictive analytics and machine learning can assist in monitoring patient deterioration in the home setting for adults ages 18 and older.
Avoiding "Drift" into Harm

This article presents specific steps leaders can take to reinforce effective patient safety practices and address workarounds that may unintentionally result in harm.

View All

Related Topics

Overview