As physicians, the nature of your business is quality improvement – whether it’s in a system, process or with patient care. Last December, a number of BC physicians were sponsored by SSC to attend the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) National Forum. The IHI Forum is the world’s premier health care conference with over 150 workshops and 400 presenters, all focused on quality improvement in the many dimensions of health care.
As the SSC’s Physician Quality Improvement (PQI) program continues its strong implementation across all health authorities in BC – activities are expanding. At this year’s IHI Forum, SSC took a more coordinated approach to give our BC physicians a more comprehensive experience. Everything from organizing early morning huddles - complete with breakfast, networking and coaching on recommended sessions to attend throughout the day, and an all-BC attendees dinner - where we had the pleasure to have Gerald Langley as our guest. Gerald is a Senior Fellow of the IHI and one of the authors of The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Organizational Performance.
Here are some words of those attended:
- “IHI gave me an opportunity to network, but it was also inspiring to see the amount of work occurring world-wide. It created a context that we usually don't experience in our clinical work.”
- “I feel like I have a much better understanding of quality improvement, but I have so much more to learn. Thanks so much for the opportunity to attend the conference.”
A post-event survey was conducted and 100% of respondents (30 physicians) said they found the content at IHI very relevant to their work within PQI. Attendance at IHI seems to have had an energizing effect on people. As one attendee commented “Listening to IHI speakers discussing their strategies for effectively deliver QI was very motivating. I am extremely excited to tackle my QI projects for this upcoming year.”
Physicians’ attendance was provided through the Physician Leadership Scholarship Program, a fund that allows each physician in BC to access up to $10k per fiscal year for training in leadership and/or quality improvement.
