Systemic, avoidable, predictable, and unjust differences in access, treatment, and outcomes between individuals and across populations should be particularly troubling for quality improvers. These types of differences are often referred to as inequities or disparities. 

Inequities are the worst type of unwanted variation in a system — variation linked to the complicated history and reality of racism, classism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and other forms of oppression. Quality improvers have a role to play and tools to use in health care systems and communities to end inequities.

Partnering with experts and health care organizations around the world, IHI innovates approaches that transform patient and workforce safety, demonstrably eliminate harm and save lives, and build capability and competencies for the health care workforce to enable continuous improvement, spread, and sustainability for safety in all care settings. 

As described in Safer Together: National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, IHI seeks to advance a total systems approach to safety: integration of safety science and high-reliability principles to mitigate and prevent risks; committed leaders who foster a culture of safety and ensure workforce safety and well-being; meaningful engagement of patients and families to co-design safety; and learning systems that continuously improve and enable safety to propagate within and beyond organizations. 

IHI aims to integrate patient safety, workforce safety, and workforce well-being, grounded in evidence and the science and methods of improvement, to ensure that every patient receives safe, reliable, effective, and equitable care from a fully-enabled health care workforce.

In May 2022, the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety (NSC) issued the Declaration to Advance Patient Safety to urge health care leaders across the continuum of care to recommit to advancing patient and workforce safety.

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The NSC called for immediate action to address safety from a total systems approach, as presented in the Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, and implored leaders to adopt safety as a core value and foster collective action to uphold this value.

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Recommit to Advance Patient and Workforce Safety

To achieve the vision of health care that is safe, reliable, and free from harm, the Declaration to Advance Patient Safety calls for health care leaders to take collective and coordinated action by doing the following:

1. Review the 17 recommendations and tactics to advance patient safety presented in Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, a report that harnesses the knowledge and insights of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety members.
2. Identify a senior sponsor and core team charged with deploying the Self-Assessment Tool, a companion resource to the National Action Plan, to evaluate your organization’s current state across each of the four foundational areas, prioritized as essential to create total systems safety.
3. Establish and enact strategies, tactics, and measurement and improvement plans to meaningfully fortify and sustain your organization’s performance in each of the four foundational areas by leveraging the Implementation Resource Guide, a companion resource to the National Action Plan.