Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Berwick, Davis and Fisher Webinar on US Health Care Reform.

What do we as Canadians have to contribute to the debate around US Health Care Reform?

How can physicians help lead health care reform?


LINK:
https://commonwealthfundevents.webex.com/mw0305l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=commonwealthfundevents


Date and Time:
Friday, May 22, 2009 11:00 am
Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -04:00, New York)

Topic:

Legislation that will fundamentally change the U.S. health care system is now being shaped in Washington, D.C. And this time, nearly all stakeholders are at the negotiation table. Join a Commonwealth Fund/Institute for Health Improvement webinar this Friday, May 22, 2009, at 11 a.m., E.D.T., as three of the nation’s leading thinkers in health policy and practice outline how physicians and others can help create a health care system that offers high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans while containing health care costs.

Panelists:
Donald M. Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Karen Davis, Ph.D., President, The Commonwealth Fund
Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director, Population Health and Policy, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Practice

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Join the Call! This Month's On Call Audio Conference is on Speaking Up for Yourself and Your Patients

HI Open School for Health Professions

On Call Audio Conference - Speaking Up for Yourself and Your Patients

Friday, May 15, 2009
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Eastern Time

You've witnessed a patient receiving care that isn't optimal.
You want to say something.
But how?

In this call, sociologist Parker Palmer, Dartmouth Medical School Professor Paul Batalden, medical student Emma Samelson-Jones, and former ACGME executive director David Leach discuss the role of truth-telling and moral agency in health care.

You'll learn:
• How a failure to speak up can lead to tragic outcomes
• Ways to respond when you see something going wrong
• How to cultivate the self-awareness and courage required to speak up
• How to engage your advisors and peers in an ongoing conversation around these issues

Join the Call!
Advanced registration is required. To register, please visit: http://services.choruscall.com/links/ihi090515.html

Suggested reading before the call: A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited, by Parker Palmer. To access the article, please click here: http://www.changemag.org/Archives/BackIssues/November-December 2007/full-new-professional.
html
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This free call is part of a monthly audio conference series that brings experts in health care improvement together with students from medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, health care management, public health, and other allied health professions. Each hour-long call ends with a question-and-answer period and focuses on an issue that affects you. To download audio files or written transcripts of past On Call audio conferences, visit our website at: http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/IHIOpenSchool/Audio.htm.
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

IHI Open School in American Medical News

Great article in American Medical News on IHI Open School ... lets get going Canada and make it a goal to be featured in the Medical Post!

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/05/04/prsb0504.htm

Medical students taking free online courses in quality, safety

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement's curriculum stresses less-traditional topics of error reduction and resource management.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Posted May 4, 2009.


Photo
In addition to lecture podcasts, online discussion groups and case studies, Open School is making use of YouTube, the video-sharing Web site, to help students learn about quality improvement and patient safety. Details are online (www.youtube.com/user/ihiopenschool).

About 4,000 medical students are taking classes on everything from measuring quality to using technology to prevent medical errors, but the training is not happening in medical schools.

Rather, it comes courtesy of free online courses offered by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (www.ihi.org/openschool).

The classes are part of the Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit's Open School for Health Professions. The program, launched in September 2008, has registered 12,000 medical, nursing and other health sciences students. There are supplementary, student-led Open School chapters at 122 health-sciences schools in 12 countries.

IHI, widely respected for initiatives that have helped doctors and hospitals reduce infections and surgical complications, wants to help medical schools.

Already, four North American medical schools have used the IHI-developed educational content.

The Open School "is really needed to offer quality improvement and patient safety educational competencies to the next generation of health professionals so they have the tools to enter the work force as prepared and active participants in providing the best care for patients," said Jill Duncan, RN, MPH, director of the program.

"Many universities are starting to do this work in their curriculum, but change is slow in academic medicine. ... This is an opportunity for students to have access to this information and offers faculty the chance to integrate this work in any way they can," Duncan said.

So far, the Open School has rolled out six introductory courses that students can take online any time.

They cover topics such as how to set goals, collect and analyze data and implement system changes to improve quality; how teamwork and communication can reduce patient harm; and how "human factors" -- the design of medical equipment, signage and labels -- affect care.

IHI staffers developed the course content in consultation with some leading U.S. patient safety and quality experts.

Online resources include videos, podcasts, discussion groups and case studies.

Once a full course load is created, students can earn certificates to add to their resumes. For an advanced certificate, students must apply the principles to an improvement project in the clinical setting. IHI also is working to qualify the courses for continuing education credit.

Open School chapters meet regularly, and advocate for more coverage of quality and safety topics in medical school curricula.

Studying safety

Vineet Arora, MD, is a faculty adviser to the Open School chapter at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, where she is assistant dean for curricular innovation. She said the program is a welcome option for students and could encourage medical schools to offer more quality and safety material to their curricula.

"In addition to the formal coursework here at Pritzker, here's another great way to get structured resources and training from an organization that specializes in quality improvement," Dr. Arora said.

Open School for Health Professions registered 12,000 medical, nursing and other health science students.

"As faculty, it takes the edge off of us a little bit, and it inspires us to really go forward and think about our next steps here," she added.

Caitlin Schaninger, a third-year medical student at the University of Chicago, is the student leader of its Open School chapter, which has 25 members. She said the program adds another dimension to her medical education.

"We're taught about topics in quality and safety [at the University of Chicago], but having the IHI Open School gets us more information about how you go about studying these issues," Schaninger said. "How do you go about formulating a hypothesis and testing it to make changes to improve quality and patient safety?"

U.S. medical educators said the fledgling IHI program reflects a broader effort to confront the nation's patient safety challenges by improving the training of doctors and other health professionals.

"Historically, medical schools have not taught these other sciences, things like human factors or error reduction and resources management," said David Mayer, MD, associate dean for curriculum at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, which also boasts an Open School chapter. "That's changing now because the urgency of the problem has been exposed."

The print version of this content appeared in the May 11, 2009 issue of American Medical News.

Discuss on Sermo Discuss on Sermo Back to top.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Weblink

Institute for Healthcare Improvement Open School for Health Professions (www.ihi.org/ihi/programs/ihiopenschool)

IHI Open School YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/ihiopenschool)

"When Improvement Isn't in the Curriculum," IHI Open School, April 7 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=A383hqDjzYY)