WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Is there a better way for boards to fulfill their mandate of ensuring health systems live up to theirs on quality?

Clinical and administrative leaders in health care know how difficult it is to shape one, unifying workplace culture. And while interdisciplinary team-based care is becoming more common in health systems, the range of people taking care of patients perform their jobs based on very different professional backgrounds and training. Can quality improvement break down these silos?

Initiatives to reduce avoidable readmissions are the norm in US health systems today. What happens when hospitals and health systems look beyond to the non-clinical issues upstream that have a big impact on rehospitalizations?

Most hospitals are understandably preoccupied with patient experience scores. High-performing organizations worry when their scores plateau, and those with mediocre scores wonder why their attention to better customer service hasn't improved the numbers.

About 5 percent of patients in the US are individuals with complex needs. Many show up at hospital emergency departments with a combination of physical, socioeconomic, and behavioral health issues. The burgeoning field of complex care is trying to break the cycle with new interventions and supportive services, but addiction, a common thread among the complex patient population, is often dealt with differently.

Health systems face numerous challenges in their efforts to improve population health. What makes a comprehensive strategy, and where do health care systems start?

Patients and families are playing a greater role in health care quality improvement. Now, some organizations believe it's essential for them to have training in basic improvement to enhance their influence and involvement.

The biggest challenge to quality improvement projects is often not measurement or process. It's people.

Eight health systems are working with IHI to elevate health equity to a strategic priority, confront institutional racism, and improve the livelihood and health of their patients, employees, and surrounding communities in eastern North Carolina.

The safety huddle has become an important way for hospitals to surface safety concerns affecting patients and the workforce. But what does it mean for patient safety when huddles become just another meeting?

A new initiative wants to emphasize the physical and mental health benefits of mobility and encourage great mobility for older patients as part of a broadening vision of age friendly care.

As stress-reduction and other health benefits of mindfulness become better known, clinicians are discovering that they, too, need new ways to deal with stress.

What's next when the diagnosis process is causing as many problems as it's trying to solve?

Health care systems are under tremendous pressure to create and sustain transformative changes on multiple fronts patient and worker safety, overall quality of care, moving from volume to value, and population health, just to name a few. At the center of the storm, overseeing these efforts and nurturing the culture and vigilance required to stay on track, is the Chief Quality Officer.

As efforts continue to curb the opioid addiction epidemic in the US and reduce deaths from overdoses, the underlying problem of overprescribing remains very much in the spotlight.