Resources

Publications

This section includes articles, books, reports, bibliographies, and other publications. Be sure to also check out IHI White Papers.

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Actions to Renew Focus on Safety Culture

Delivering the health care that our patients expect — in every setting and under all conditions — demands that we urgently revisit safety culture as the fundamental driver of both patient and workforce safety.
Three Keys to Cross-Sector Age-Friendly Care

Improving Public Health and Health Care for Older Adults: The Three Keys to Cross-Sector Age-Friendly Work Implementation Guide and Workbook contains resources to improve how public health and health care organizations work across the care continuum to reliably provide evidence-based care and services to every older adult at every interaction, with a foundational focus on equity.
Enhancing Quality Improvement Adoption in US Nursing Homes

This report summarizes the research findings from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 90-day innovation project to identify key activities to increase adoption of effective quality improvement practices in US nursing homes.
Organizational Trustworthiness in Health Care

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement partnered with the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation to identify key organizational-level drivers and change ideas that repair, build, and strengthen trust between health care organizations and clinicians, and between health care organizations and the communities they serve. This report describes a theory of how to repair, build, and strengthen trust, presented as a three-step approach with specific change ideas and associated measures for improvement.
A Matter of Trust: Commitment to Act for Health Equity

This article presents high-leverage, specific actions to improve equity in health care that are both possible and feasible for all health care organizations to undertake now.

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IHI in Harvard Business Review

At the intersection of health care and business — selected IHI-authored articles published in the Harvard Business Review.

IHI in Health Affairs

Where health care meets policy — selected IHI-authored articles published in Health Affairs.

IHI in JAMA

Improving clinical health care — selected IHI-authored articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Newest publications listed first. Click "View All" to see all pages.

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Actions to Renew Focus on Safety Culture

Delivering the health care that our patients expect — in every setting and under all conditions — demands that we urgently revisit safety culture as the fundamental driver of both patient and workforce safety.
Three Keys to Cross-Sector Age-Friendly Care

Improving Public Health and Health Care for Older Adults: The Three Keys to Cross-Sector Age-Friendly Work Implementation Guide and Workbook contains resources to improve how public health and health care organizations work across the care continuum to reliably provide evidence-based care and services to every older adult at every interaction, with a foundational focus on equity.
Enhancing Quality Improvement Adoption in US Nursing Homes

This report summarizes the research findings from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 90-day innovation project to identify key activities to increase adoption of effective quality improvement practices in US nursing homes.
Organizational Trustworthiness in Health Care

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement partnered with the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation to identify key organizational-level drivers and change ideas that repair, build, and strengthen trust between health care organizations and clinicians, and between health care organizations and the communities they serve. This report describes a theory of how to repair, build, and strengthen trust, presented as a three-step approach with specific change ideas and associated measures for improvement.
A Matter of Trust: Commitment to Act for Health Equity

This article presents high-leverage, specific actions to improve equity in health care that are both possible and feasible for all health care organizations to undertake now.
Using Machine Learning to Improve Patient Safety in the Home or Remote Setting for Adults

The primary aim of the IHI innovation project described in this report was to assess the use of predictive analytics, specifically machine learning, to improve patient safety through emerging and existing approaches to predict risk, such as technologies and decision support tools. Specific attention was given to how predictive analytics and machine learning can assist in monitoring patient deterioration in the home setting for adults ages 18 and older.
Effective Quality Planning

Quality planning is the essential first step of IHI's Whole System Quality approach to overall quality management. This article describes effective quality planning that engages multidisciplinary health care leaders in clearly defining the systemwide quality goals, sets priorities, responds to external evaluations of performance, ensures there are sufficient resources to meet the goals, and leverages existing data systems to identify aligned opportunities for improvement.
Ensuring Equitable Age-Friendly Care

This article presents six steps to address inequities in the care of older adults, aligned with each step of the journey to becoming an Age-Friendly Health System.
Fundamentals of Health Care Improvement: A Guide to Improving Your Patients' Care

This book is intended to help health professional learners diagnose, measure, analyze, change, and lead improvements in health care, with the aim to shape reliable, high-quality systems of care in partnership with patients.
Avoiding "Drift" into Harm

This article presents specific steps leaders can take to reinforce effective patient safety practices and address workarounds that may unintentionally result in harm.

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Learn about IHI's latest theories and innovations in these newest IHI White Papers.

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Telemedicine: Ensuring Safe, Equitable, Person-Centered Virtual Care

This white paper describes a framework to guide health care organizations in their efforts to provide safe, equitable, person-centered telemedicine. The framework includes six elements to consider: access, privacy, diagnostic accuracy, communication, psychological and emotional safety, and human factors and system design.
Whole System Quality

This white paper describes a more holistic approach to quality management that integrates quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement activities across the organization, supported by leadership practices that foster a culture of learning.

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Findings from IHI’s research on innovative ideas and their potential for advancing QI.

Providing Safe, High-Quality Maternity Care in Rural US Hospitals
This IHI Innovation Report examines the challenges and gaps that rural health care organizations in the US face; presents a synthesis of published evidence and effective approaches developed by clinicians and leaders; and describes potential strategies for providing safe, high-quality maternity care in rural areas.
Integrating Behavioral Health in the Emergency Department and Upstream
This IHI Innovation Report discusses barriers to integrating behavioral health in the ED, and presents five drivers (emerging from six key themes from existing approaches) that form the building blocks of a theory of change for making improvements in this area.
Patient-Administered Self-Care
For specific procedures and treatments, health care providers can train individuals to administer their own self-care, on their own time, without supervision or dependence on a licensed professional. Patient-administered self-care can occur either in traditional health care facilities or another location of the patient's choosing outside of a facility.
Addressing the Opioid Crisis in the United States
This IHI Innovation Report discusses key reasons why current efforts to reduce prescription opioid use and misuse in the US have thus far been largely ineffective in stemming the crisis; highlights gaps in current efforts that underscore the need for a coordinated and collaborative community-wide approach; identifies four primary drivers to reduce opioid use; and proposes a high-level construct for a system approach at the community level to address the US opioid crisis.
Community-Based Behavioral Health Integration: A Focus on Community Health Workers to Support Individuals with Behavioral Health and Medical Needs
The aim of the IHI 90-day innovation project described in this report was to develop an approach to managing patients with comorbid behavioral health and medical needs in community-based settings. The report identifies four populations who could be well-served by community-based behavioral health integration and potential interventions to support these populations; describes the role and key functions of community health workers; and discusses key areas for future research and improvement.
A Framework for Selecting Digital Health Technology: IHI Innovation Report
The intent of this IHI Innovation Project was to scan for health technology innovations that will provide the greatest value to health systems working to achieve the IHI Triple Aim. Using validated approaches to software selection, we created a Digital Health Selection Framework (DHSF) to guide patients, providers, and payers through the procurement of such technology.
Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care: IHI 90-Day R&D Project Final Summary Report
This IHI 90-day R&D project report examines the basic principles underlying existing, exemplary integration models and integrated organizations, identifies the core components required for success, and assesses how (or if) they are operationalized by each of the different models. The aim is to understand the core principles underlying successful integration of behavioral health services into primary care.
Counties of Interest: Achieving Better- or Worse-Than-Expected Health Outcomes: IHI 90-Day R&D Project Final Summary Report
The intent of this project was to identify counties in the US with health outcomes significantly better or worse than one would expect based in their socioeconomic status. Once these counties were identified, we sought to understand what drivers may have led to those results.
Improving Graduate Medical Education: Innovations in Primary Care and Ambulatory Settings: IHI 90-Day R&D Project Final Summary Report
This report includes best practices and practical examples of graduate medical education programs that are redesigning training to equip residents and students with the skills needed for primary care practice in a rapidly changing US health care landscape.
Approaches to Training Faculty at Academic Medical Centers to Ensure That Clinical Trainees Become Effective Improvers: IHI 90-Day R&D Final Summary Report
This IHI 90-day R&D project focused on assisting academic medical centers and graduate medical education programs in becoming aligned and capable in quality and safety programming.
Network Theory: IHI 90-Day R&D Project Final Summary Report
This IHI 90-Day R&D Project includes a thorough literature review on the topics of network theory, network terminology, and social network analysis; personal interviews with network experts across many disciplines; and a draft framework for an enhanced network.

Publications

Publications

​IHI in Harvard Business Review

​IHI in Health Affairs

​IHI in JAMA

IHI in Harvard Business Review

IHI in Health Affairs

IHI in JAMA