At the request of health care delivery systems in this region, IHI is helping them demonstrate effective leadership and management practices, improve patient safety, build capabilities for quality improvement, and develop, test, and implement strategies to improve population health.
Some of IHI's work in the Asia-Pacific region is highlighted below.
Australia
Safer Care Victoria
Since 2018 IHI has been engaged in a multi-year strategic partnership with Safer Care Victoria (SCV), a peak state authority for quality and safety improvement in health care. IHI is supporting SCV in its efforts to deliver safer, more effective, and person-centered health care across Victoria. To accelerate the pace of improvement, IHI is assisting SCV to deploy a strategy to achieve whole system quality, build multi-level capability across the health sector, and deliver measurable results through the application of improvement science. IHI is also supporting SCV’s work to achieve system-wide transformation by designing and implementing initiatives to improve health outcomes in priority areas, including maternal and newborn health, delirium, heart failure, health worker well-being, Age-Friendly Health Systems, patient flow, and residential care for children and young people.
National Collaborative to Reduce Preterm and Early-Term Birth across Australia
IHI has partnered with the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance and Women’s Healthcare Australasia on a two-year National Collaborative that aims to improve the health outcomes of mothers and babies by safely reducing preterm and early-term birth across Australia by 20%. The Collaborative utilizes IHI’s Breakthrough Series model and is part of a larger national initiative led by the Alliance to affect birth outcomes across all regions in Australia.
India
CARE India
IHI is a part of a Technical Support Unit working with CARE India that provides catalytic support to the Health and Social Welfare Departments of the Government of Bihar, India. This effort is building on two prior phases of work focusing on the state's five-year Integrated Family Health Initiative (IFHI) that began in 2011 to improve maternal care, newborn care, nutrition, immunization, and family planning. IHI is guiding the design and implementation of a series of capability-building workshops focused on improvement science to improve outcomes for mother and children, engaging 36 of the Bihar’s 38 districts to foster a collaborative-like network across the hospitals.
Singapore
Ministry of Health National Health Priorities
In 2014 IHI developed a Strategic Partnership with the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) to support two mutually reinforcing strands of work: accelerate improvement in national health priorities through large-scale, results-oriented initiatives; and extend system-wide quality improvement capability. In 2021, IHI embarked on a new, bold and transformational collaborative with the National Improvement Unit (NIU) established by the Singapore MOH, building on the foundational work of the national Diabetes Collaborative to improve prevention, early intervention, and management of this chronic disease. This Collaborative will bring together teams from across the wider Singapore health care services to test evidence-based interventions and initiatives across community, primary, and acute care to achieve significant reductions in diabetes-related hospital admissions by 2024. This partnership, supported by an on-site IHI Project Director, will also concurrently establish a program to consolidate and expand improvement science capability across all levels of the Singapore health system in order to lead and deliver future improvements, aligned with other selected national health priorities.
Past Collaborations in the Region
Australia
Clinical Excellence Commission
The Clinical Excellence Commission is responsible for supporting and promoting improved clinical care, safety, and quality improvement in the public health system of New South Wales. This partnership with IHI built a foundation of improvement capability and developed infrastructure to sustain future improvements with a consortium of quality and safety agencies across multiple states. Capability-building offerings have included the IHI Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program and the Accelerated Patient Safety Program.
Monash Health
One of the largest health service providers in Australia, Monash Health provides health care across the entire lifespan — from pre-birth, newborn babies and children, to the aged, their families, and caregivers. Through university affiliations, it is a major provider of education and training for the next generation of health professionals and the major clinical partner in research that is advancing knowledge and clinical care. IHI partnered with Monash to build improvement capability across the organization, from the front lines of care to the organizational leadership level.
Bangladesh
USAID MaMoni MNCSP
Over a five-year period, IHI partnered with Save the Children and other consortium partners to harness the unparalleled opportunity that USAID’s Strengthening Public Sector Maternal and Newborn Care presents. This USAID-funded project included opportunities to advance learning and scale-up of effective maternal and newborn care interventions to improve outcomes for mothers and newborns in Bangladesh. IHI worked with MaMoni partners to address quality, including health systems quality improvement, capability-building trainings in 10 priority districts, and large-scale learning Collaboratives across the country.
India
ACCESS Health International: Safe Care, Saving Lives
ACCESS Health International partnered with IHI to assist in developing quality improvement Collaboratives to improve NICUs, Labor wards, and reliable processes at birth. IHI provided guidance, mentorship, and support for building improvement capability. The Safe Care, Saving Lives project aims to reduce neonatal deaths due to sepsis, prematurity, and birth asphyxia in 25 participating hospitals in Andrah Pradesh.
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)
All-India Institute of Medical Sciences was established to develop patterns of teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in all its branches so as to demonstrate a high standard of medical education in India; to bring together in one place educational facilities of the highest order for the training of personnel in all important branches of health activity; and to attain self-sufficiency in postgraduate medical education. The Institute has comprehensive facilities for teaching, research, and patient care. AIIMS conducts teaching programs in medical and para-medical courses both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and awards its own degrees. IHI and AIIMS partnered to offer the IHI Improvement Coach Professional Development Program in early 2017.
Pakistan
Aga Khan University
Aga Khan University (AKU) is an international academic institution dedicated to advancing social development through education and research in low- and middle-income countries. AKU partnered with IHI on the design of their Vaccine Uptake Promotion and Strategy Evaluation Study to improve child vaccination coverage. The study compared three different strategies while applying quality improvement methodologies across rural and urban areas in Pakistan.
