IHI Open School Quality Improvement Subscription

Included Courses

Visit each course page for detailed lesson summaries and Continuing Education information.

QI 101: Introduction to Health Care Improvement
This course will give you an introduction to quality improvement and health care improvement. You'll get a high-level picture of the current quality of care in the United States and other nations, learn about six simple aims that have guided countless improvements in health care across the globe, and learn why improvement, especially in a complex environment such as health care, requires us to think about the larger systems in which we live and work.

QI 102: How to Improve with the Model for Improvement
This course will teach you how to use the Model for Improvement to improve everything from your tennis game to your hospital’s infection rate. You’ll learn the basic steps in any improvement project: setting an aim, selecting measures, developing ideas for changes, and testing changes using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. As you go, you’ll have the opportunity to use this methodology to start your own personal improvement project.

QI 103: Testing and Measuring Changes with PDSA Cycles
In this course, we’ll take you through basic concepts you need to know to run successful PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles in a clinical setting. Measurement is an essential part of testing changes with PDSA. It tells you if the changes you are testing are leading to improvement.

QI 104: Interpreting Data: Run Charts, Control Charts, and Other Measurement Tools
In this course, we’ll delve into how to draw an effective run chart to create a compelling picture of your progress toward improvement. We’ll teach you to distinguish non-random patterns in your data — that is, evidence that performance has actually changed. Once you’ve got that down, we’ll introduce you to three more excellent tools for displaying and learning from data.

QI 105: Leading Quality Improvement
The first four IHI Open School quality improvement courses taught you basic improvement methodology, which you can apply to improve health care processes and make care safer. But when you assume a leadership role in a clinical improvement project, you’ll need more than just technical knowledge. In the real world, you’ll need to know the steps for managing the project through to completion. You’ll need to understand the psychology of change, and you’ll need skills in interdisciplinary teamwork. In the real world, the human side of quality improvement — that is, the ability to rally a group around a cause — is every bit as important as having a good idea for a change.

QI 201: Planning for Spread: From Local Improvements to System-Wide Change
Previous courses in the Quality Improvement catalog focused on testing and implementing a change in one location. This advanced course is about the next logical step: spreading the change. You'll learn how new ideas typically spread through a population and how you can spread your own quality improvement ideas.

QI 202: Addressing Small Problems to Build Safer, More Reliable Systems
If an organization is to avoid catastrophic failure, staff members need to call out small problems as they arise in daily work. In this lesson, you’ll learn that organizations that successfully manage complexity have a deliberate approach to escalating the small concerns and suggestions of employees. Staff members know how to recognize problems, whom to contact, and how to get that person’s attention immediately. The leaders, in turn, avoid blame and provide the resources necessary to solve problems.

Continuing Education Credits

Earn Continuing Education (CE) credits with accreditation from American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), and the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). As of April 2023, more than 1.77 million CE credits have been claimed through Open School courses.

Learn more about Continuing Education credits

Note: Subscriptions will not auto-renew. We will contact you when your subscription is approaching expiration. Scholarships may be available in cases of financial hardship.