WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Where is progress being made to reduce instances of C. difficile, and where does more aggresive work need to be done?

Health care leaders have an incredibly important role to play in driving improvement initiatives in their organizations. So do people on the frontlines of care. What we aren’t as articulate about is the role that middle managers play.

There’s no question that public and private payers in the US are moving towards more global payment arrangements with health care providers. But the picture of how health care delivery systems take up the challenge is still coming into focus.

Leaders of the teams behind the winning presentations presented at IHI’s 20th Annual Scientific Symposium in December 2014 talk about their work, including the most recent data about each improvement endeavor and how new processes and pathways can be sustained.

Against the backdrop of the Affordable Care Act and other significant US initiatives, this WIHI touches on recent progress with efforts to achieve better care and lower costs, global payments and various payer-led financial efforts designed to improve health care delivery, statewide reforms, Medicaid expansion, and more.

A relatively small percentage of the US population accounts for the largest share of health care costs. Everyone knows who we're talking about, right? Well, not exactly.

It doesn't necessarily “take a village” to have a conversation with loved ones about wishes for end-of-life care. But it can help to have others in the community to turn to for ideas, resources, and support – especially if the “kitchen table” conversation with important people in one’s life isn’t happening so readily.

A special edition WIHI, featuring renowned hospitalist and health care safety expert, Dr. Robert Wachter, and recorded during his remarks at IHI's National Forum.

Primary care practices across the US are facing a number of important challenges right now; prominent among them is doing a much better job at recognizing and helping patients with behavioral health issues.

When IHI first introduced the framework of the Triple Aim in 2008, we couldn’t have imagined how much it would resonate with health and health care improvers all over the world. Six years and much on the ground experience later, this pursuit of better experience of care, better health, and lower costs, is taking a new, exciting turn.

As the implementation of electronic health records (EHR) increases across healthcare, so has awareness of new patient safety risks that the technology has either introduced or exposed. The very same EHR being counted on to improve communication, safety, and continuity of care across multiple settings and providers turns out to have features that can have the opposite effect.

Hips and knees are replaced in record numbers these days and these requent procedures have comparatively low rates of harm and complications, bringing new scrutiny of performance and opportunities for improvement..

With all the discussion going on about the integration of behavioral health with primary care in the outpatient setting, we don’t want to ignore what’s happening in the hospital for patients with psychiatric conditions and needs. Safety has been one of the major issues identified in recent years… safety for individuals in crisis, for the staff caring for them, and for family members. Those who’ve identified effective improvements are often the patients themselves.

Whether or not you are directly involved in graduate medical education (GME), its priorities have implications for all of health care.Learn from our panel of experts as we explored the goals of CLER and the specific ways residents are being asked to contribute to patient safety, quality improvement, care transitions, supervision, duty management, and professionalism.

In this WIHI, we learn about a terrific set of guiding principles for appreciating and distinguishing among the wide range of methods health care organizations are using to decipher patient experience data and the comprehensive picture that emerges from patient surveys, focus groups, patient and family advisory councils, and much more.