Institute for Healthcare Quality

PDP101: Invitation to Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety.

This course is a Professional Development Program [PDP] that provides a overview of all the courses avialable in the online section of iHQ's Learning Center.

This course provides a broad and simple introduction of the new discipline of Healthcare Quality Improvement.Besides a historical overview of the field , the course covers the international developments in the field.The fundamental principle of quality is 'meeting a need'. The course will provide a overview of the methods and tools to measure and balance the voice of the customer to the voice of the process.

Besides providing a conceptual analysis of the definition of quality of healthcare, it will address the various dimensions of healthcare quality. Various terminologies are used to describe the field of quality in healthcare such as quality assurance, peer review, clinical audit, accreditation, outcomes research, TQM, outcomes management,lean healthcare, six sigma,performance improvement, clinical governance, theory of constraints, practice based evidence, practice research,implementation science,pragmatic science,translational research, goal based medicine, value based medicine,hospital epidemiology,research utilization, evidence based practice. We prefer to use the term 'Improvement Science' that is supported by NIH, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement[IHI] at Boston and the Health Foundation in UK.

Also see: View the Instructor Led Courses section of iHQ's Learning Center for upcoming Training Workshops.

PDP102: Best Practices in Outcomes Management.

This course is part of Professional Development Program [PDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence. Will Open Soon!

At the Institute for Healthcare Quality we make a distinction between 'Quality in Healthcare' and 'Quality of Healthcare'. The latter has had two distinct phases in its evolution: Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement. iHQ identifies itself with 'Quality of Healthcare' and more specifically Quality Improvement. Accreditation and Clinical Audit are largely considered instruments of quality assurance, because of the periodic, retrospective and ' offline' nature, with a strong dependency on documentation. However, unlike accreditation , clinical audit provides an opportunity for self assessment.

As developing countries lack a legacy of quality assurance and still find clinical information systems unaffordable, we advocate a ' Mixed Model' of Healthcare Quality. Clinical audit is defined as the systematic evaluation of the Structure , Process and Outcomes of the care provided to a cohort of patients. Clinical audit provides a opportunity to establish a baseline within organizations but may not be supportive of continous improvement . Our focus is to encourage the establishment of outcomes management programs within healthcare organizations that allow evalution to be prospective and thus the data to be actionable and improvement in realtime.

This course distills the priniciples and practices of Outcome Management and would be useful to clinical and nonclinical personnel.

PDP103: The Principles and Practice of Patient Safety.

This is a Professional Development Program [PDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence.Will Open Soon!

Systems failure in healthcare hinders the excellence in practice and harms patients. Quality as a discipline is itself concerned with the " problematic side of healthcare'. Quality may more accurately be defined by the negative: what is not quality. Patient safety becomes a specific and quanifiable aspect of quality.

While the development of Patient Safety as a separate discipline acknowldeges its unique mental models , theories of causation and control, it remains a integral part of quality.

This course extends the WHO multidisciplinary curriculum on Patient Safety towards a practice based on improvement science. All healthcare professionals would benefit from this course.

Also see: Check for local training in patient safety at PatientSafety.org.in

PDP104: Statistical Thinking for Clinicians.

This course is Professional Development Program[PDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence. Will Open Soon!

Data is the life blood of Improvement. Improvement Science is based on a distinct 'Theory of Measurement' as well 'Techniques of Analysis'. This distinction is often captured by the use of the description " Statistical Thinking" as apposed to the traditional 'Statistical Methods'.

Statistical Literacy in the healthcare professions, is not as high as it should or could be. Statitical Process Control was developed to provide simple analytical tools for blue collar workers to use in the industrial shop floors. These tools have been successfully adapted and utilised in healthcare in the last two decades.

This program is intended for healthcare professionals , both clinical and non- clinical who are interested in the application of improvement methods in their workplaces.

Also See: Visit our academic blog StatisticalThinking.org for more resources.

PDP105: Fundamentals of Lean Healthcare.

This course is a Professional Development Program [PDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence.Will Open Soon!

This Course is an invitation to Lean Thinking for Healthcare Professionals.It covers the principles of Lean Manufacturing and their application to healthcare processes. Lean Thinking is improvement ideology that incorporates 'change management' into the improvement method, in a 'grounded' manner. It provides a "Quick Start- Quick Finish" framework by locating itself in the gemba or the 'real workplace' and for the customer.

The first principle in lean is that value is inversely proportional to waste. Waste is any cost -material, information,people,process, space or time that is not valued by the customer and thus does not generate revenue.The japanese term for waste is 'muda' and the tools used are a refinement of the familiar quality improvement tools eg. Value Stream Mapping , 5s, A3 problem solving.

The second priniciple in lean focuses on the 'flow' or smootheness of work. The japanese word for flow is 'mura'. Here the tools are more foundational and require a big picture view of the production process.eg The methodologies applied here are JIT, Pull Systems or Kanban.

On the whole the lean tool kit is robust and resource sensitive. We believe that lean thinking by itself is the most appropriate tool for the much needed 'efficiency' revolution in both private and public healthcare in the developing world. Lean thinking is a foundation for 'habitual excellence' and for those who practice lean, 'Quality is Free.'

Also see iHQ's WOW! Campaign.

FDP 101: The Foundations of Improvement Science.

This is a Faculty Development Program [FDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence.Will Open Soon!

This course is for Physicians, Nurses, Pharmacists, Physiotherapists as well as other Clinicians and Clinical Executives. The heart of healthcare is care at the bedside, which depends on the synchronization of various resources, professional groups, equipments, knowledge bases etc that ultimately constitute a complex system. Decision making and action is often under conditions of uncertainity, risk, high workloads and limited resources.

Improvement Science is a new paradigm of healthcare based on systems science, that aligns research, practice and quality. Improvement Science is now acknowledged as integral to the scientific practice of medicine and core competence for clinical professionals. Using quality improvement methods practioners will learn to collaborativelly plan, control and improve their practices, while clinical executives will learn to inspire and support such initiatives in their workplaces.

The Foundations of Improvement Science course is open for free preview from the 11th of April 2012 to 28th April 2012, to members of the Collabrum.

Also see: Visit our academic blog ImprovementScience.org for theoretical perspectives.

FDP 102: Develop and deliver a Improvement Science curriculum for Healthcare Students.

This course is part of Faculty Development Program [FDP] to support Clinical Practice Excellence. Will Open Soon!

Improvement Science is a newly evolving field in healthcare. It is based on the systems sciences and is a new paradigm of healthcare practice , that aligns research, practice and quality. While it is a applied organizational science, improvement thinking and improvement behaviour can be taught to undergraduates, even at an early stage of their education.

'Socialization of Quality' is a unique perspective of mainstreaming the .of quality in medical and other clinical disciplines. Fundamental to this approach is the development of capabilities for improvement in individuals, organizations and community. This requires rethinking about the nature of medicine/ nursing etc and the nature of clinical practice, specifically to the locus of the patient. It also requires a redefinition of professionalism, that incorporates a duty to learn improvement science and the right to put it to practice/specialize.ie. professionalization of improvement. This requires a social enviroment that strives for the institutionalization of accountability or the social demand for value of healthcare, defined multidimensionally and from the view point of multiple stakeholders.

This course would summarize the international experience and provide frameworks , techniques and insights to effctively integrate improvement science into under-graduate and post-graduate Curriculums.

Besides healthcare professionals in the acdemia,the course would benefit professional trainers.

LDP101: Strategic Deployment of Quality.

This Course is a Leadership Development Program [LDP] to support Healthcare Quality for Executive Leadership. Will Open Soon!

LDP102: Making sense of Accreditation and Models of Excellence.

LDP103: Exploration of Six Sigma in Healthcare.

LDP104: Hospital Planning and Design for Quality.

CDP101: Improving Public Health.

This course is a Community Development Program [PDP] to support Public Health Quality Science.Will Open Soon!

Indian healthcare is a profile of paradoxes. Healthcare progress is diassociated from economic progress. Public Healthcare Systems both in urban and rural settings lag behind. It is a mistaken assumption that quality is applicable only to the private or so called 'corporate hospitals'. Quality seems to follow money. We believe money should follow quality. Its is this paradox that we have proposed a unique focus of ' Capabilities for Improvement'.

Public health has the advantage of already using methodologies of statistics and epidemiology , that allow seemless integration of improvement science. What is lacking is a clear and comprehensive definiition of aim. Equity in Healthcare has been a 'road made by walking'. We can now 'do it by design'.We adopt and promote the internationally renowned 'Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Triple Aim as the agenda for this module.

The Millenium Development Goals provide a unprecedented opportunity and urgency for a system wide experimentation in public health.

This course is for practioner of public health , social work ,etc. and also clinician who are interested in the equity of healthcare.

Also see:

HealthcareProgress.org for our overall agenda.

Push for Change : World Health Assembly resolution for Healthcare Quality by 2014.