hospital impact

by Christopher Cornue

Dr. Don Berwick, President for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), spoke to the delegates at the 24th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) about bringing improvements in healthcare to “full scale” and discussed the current IHI campaign to prevent harm to 5 million patients. I’m certain most of our readers are either aware of the initiative or probably active participants in it.

Dr. Berwick offered that 45% of needed care is not received, 22% of chronically ill adults report “serious errors” in their care, and 74% of these chronically ill adults say the healthcare systems needs “fundamental change.” He spoke about the vast variation in care and mentioned research by the Commonwealth Fund and the Dartmouth Atlas project. These data support the assertion that this high variation in the industry is not delivering better care or better access. He further suggested that our industry’s usual response of “demanding that things be changed” is not working. We aren’t addressing the fundamental flaws in the system, so our focus should really be on redesign of our systems. This is a foundation for the 100,000 lives initiative, as well as the campaign to reduce harm to 5 million lives.

In a discussion about where IHI has been, Dr. Berwick talked about the organization’s focus over the past several years, with each approach building upon the previous. So, the approaches for IHI have been Awareness, Education, Collaborative Improvement, Redesign, Movement and finally, currently, Full Scale efforts. He was proud of the evolution of the IHI, rightfully so, and is excited about what he expects to be a successful campaign to prevent harm to 5 million individuals. Visit the IHI website for more information about the campaign and the work Dr. Berwick and his organization have led the past few decades.