Leadership at all levels drives improvements in health care quality and patient safety, and propels organizational and system transformation. In these courses, discover techniques for persuading people and uniting teams, as well as approaches for publishing your quality improvement results. Take away individual- and team-level strategies to support your colleagues' mental health and your own, while recognizing the crucial role of systems-level leaders to support the physical and psychological safety of the health care workforce.
An annual IHI Open School Subscription can provide access to all these courses and more.
L 101: Introduction to Health Care Leadership
When you think of a leader, who comes to mind? A president? A CEO? This course will teach you a different idea of leadership: No matter your position or formal title, you can be a leader. In this course, you’ll learn about a hospital that’s having some trouble with infection control. As you grapple with the case, you’ll learn that leadership isn’t a position of authority — it’s an action.
In Lesson 1, you’ll learn how to persuade different types of people and build enough unity to move forward.
In Lesson 2, you’ll learn how good leaders use different approaches to persuade different types of people. You’ll learn to develop persuasive arguments based on power, logic, and emotion. You’ll also learn some specific tactics to help the teams of which you’re a part achieve what psychiatrist John Gardner calls a “workable level of unity.”
In Lesson 3, we’ll show you how to focus on yourself as you move forward with your career. We’ll introduce you to a former IHI Fellow who will share her positive experiences and give you some tips to keep in mind as you start thinking about ways you can improve care. This lesson will provide several strategies to overcome obstacles and chart a steady course toward improvement.
Estimated Time of Completion: 1 hour 15 minutes
Lessons
- Lesson 1: What Makes a Leader?
- Lesson 2: Practical Skills for Leading Teams
- Lesson 3: Strategies to Sustain Your Health Care Leadership Journey Course
Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Describe several characteristics of leaders, who may or may not have formal positions of authority.
- Describe different techniques for persuading different types of people.
- Explain why achieving a workable level of unity among teammates is essential for effective team functioning.
- List several ways to help sustain your health care leadership journey over time.
Continuing Education Credits
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of 1.25
AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of 1.25 credits for nurses and pharmacists. This activity is approved to award 1.25 credits toward Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) recertification.
This program has been approved by the National Association for Healthcare Quality for a maximum of 1.25 CPHQ continuing education credits for this event.
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 1.25 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.
L 102: Mental Health and Well-being During and After COVID-19
Everyone needs support in times of crisis. For some, informal support from friends, family, or colleagues is sufficient. Others may need professional counseling or treatment. And many would benefit from something in the middle: the type of formalized peer support services we will discuss in this course.
This short course will recommend actions for a difficult time. It will discuss how individual health care workers can promote their own health and well-being, and how team leaders can support staff, reduce fear and anxiety, promote psychological safety, and facilitate peer support and connections everyday — especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating existing issues with health care professional burnout and joy in work that will persist once the more immediate crisis has abated. While many staff are currently experiencing distress related to their work, others are not but are at risk of mental health sequelae in the future. Although this course will cover individual and team leader actions, these are short-term solutions; the actions of system-level leaders remain paramount to maintain and improve all aspects of health care quality and safety, including provider mental health and wellbeing.
Estimated Time of Completion: 45 minutes
Course Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Describe how you will prioritize self-care during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Identify steps you will take to support colleagues during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Explain the concept of peer support in general and in relation to times of crisis.
- Describe how you will use open, honest questioning as a tool during times of crisis.
Continuing Education Credits
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of .75
AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of .75 credits for nurses and pharmacists.
L 103: Making Publishable QI Projects Part of Everyday Work
Health care workers often find it challenging to incorporate disciplined quality improvement (QI) into their daily work. Planning, managing, and completing improvement projects with sufficient rigor to generate credible evidence and potentially publishable knowledge are even more difficult. Nonetheless, careful set-up and agile leveraging of existing resources and expertise can lead to surprisingly robust results.
Estimated Time of Completion: 30 minutes
Course Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Describe how you will design and execute improvement projects that yield credible, publishable results.
- Identify whether or not a QI project is “research” that needs to be reviewed by an institutional ethics review board.
- Discuss writing strategies that have worked for published authors
Continuing Education Credits
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of .5
AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
This activity is approved to award .5 credit(s) toward Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) recertification.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of .5 credits for nurses and pharmacists.
L 201: The Role of Leaders in Workforce Safety
In regard to physical injury, hospitals are among the most hazardous job sites in the United States. Meanwhile, it is well-known that the culture of medicine can be toxic and emotionally damaging. When workforce safety is a concern, it impacts patient safety and an organization’s financial well-being. If your organization is on a journey to become a high-reliability organization, it needs to prioritize workforce safety. In this short course, experts will explore the foundational role of leaders in keeping the health care workforce safe and strategies that have succeeded in reducing physical harm and improving psychological safety across organizations.
Estimated Time of Completion: 1 hour
Course Objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Explain the impact of health care worker safety on patients, families, and the health care workforce.
- Establish the business case for workforce safety.
- Describe how you will implement strategies for reducing physical harm and improving psychological safety across your health care organization.
Continuing Education Credits
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of 1
AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
This activity is approved to award 1 credit(s) toward Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) recertification.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement designates this internet enduring activity for a maximum of 1 credit(s) for nurses and pharmacists.
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