Date: February 26, 2015

Featuring:

• Adebisi Alli, DO, MS, Chief Resident in Quality & Patient Safety, Department of Internal Medicine, Banner-University Medical Center, Phoenix VA Healthcare System
• Gareth Parry, MSc, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
• Lori Rutman, MD, MPH, Attending Physician, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Seattle Children’s Hospital
• Angela Statile, MD, MEd, Attending Physician, Division of Hospital Medicine, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Thirty-two abstracts and 56 posterboards were shared at IHI’s 20th Annual Scientific Symposium this past December. At the end of the day, the audience voted three of these as the best for clarity of presentation and strength of research. We gathered the leaders of the teams behind the winning presentations to talk about their work on this WIHI.

IHI’s Senior Scientist Gareth Parry, who runs the Scientific Symposium, kicked off our discussion with some framing about the state of health and health care improvement science in the US and globally. He also set the stage for us to hear about the three winning presentations of exemplar initiatives: a multi-year effort at Seattle Children’s Hospital to improve the care pathways for children suffering from chronic asthma; the successful implementation of new processes at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to reduce discharge-related waits and delays for children with complex medical problems and illnesses; and the creation of a medical resident-led consultation team at a Veterans Administration Medical Center to increase the number of error reports submitted by residents and to ensure that safety concerns are addressed.