Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Forum

Dania Daye, MD, PhD

Resident in Radiology at MGH

PGY-5

January 3, 2019

I was fortunate for the opportunity attend the IHI National Forum in Orlando, FL from December 10^th-12^th.The conference brings together national and international healthcare leaders to discuss quality improvement in healthcare and means to move from volume to value for better and safer patient care. This year, the conference had 10 tracks: equity, improvement science, joy in work, leadership, maternal and child health, mental health and well-being, moving from volume to value, person-center care, population health, and safety.

On the first day of the conference, I had the opportunity to learn about improving healthcare through better quality measures by attending an 8-hour course taught by Dr. Robert Lloyd, a world-renowned authority in this field. One of the quotes from that session that stuck with me was a quote by Dr. Deming who said: “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion,” highlighting the importance of collecting actionable data to improve healthcare.

One of the unique aspects of the forum was the opportunity to interact with and learn from healthcare leaders from across the world. In the opening session of the conference, I learned about a powerful patient-centered platform that has been implemented in Scotland, Care Opinion, where patients provide input about their care. It is the equivalent of TripAdvisor for Healthcare and has led to tremendous patient engagement in Scotland. In another session that day, I learned about the visionary healthcare strategy in Singapore, a country that has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Their healthcare strategy centers around 3 pillars: moving beyond hospital to community, beyond quality to value and beyond healthcare to health.

One of the most impactful concepts that I learned at the forum was the importance of focusing on PERSON-CENTERED care, rather than patient-centered care, as it is most often referred to in the literature. Patient-centered care is visit-based while person-centered care is based on accumulated knowledge of people over time allowing for better understanding of their health problems, preferences and needs.  Moving forward, I will be striving to incorporate many of the concepts I learned to improve the care of patients in interventional radiology and beyond.

To close, I will end with one of the most powerful quotes from the forum: “You treat a disease; you win you lose. You treat a person; you win no matter the outcome.”