My First IHI Conference!

Neelam A. Phadke, MD

Fellow in Allergy/Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital

PGY-7

12/19/2019

Conference schedule

Through COE funding, I was fortunate enough to attend the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare this month in Orlando, FL and had an absolute blast!  Having read and  heard great things about the conference (particularly from Maureen Bisognano, president emerita and senior fellow of the IHI), I had very high expectations of what the two days would be like, and the conference greatly exceeded them!  The plenary talks were phenomenal—inspirational and educational with gems like “Race is not a risk factor, racism is.”  My biggest take-away was that every person you meet is on a personal 

Conference setting 

My bag of supplies for an interactive
design thinking session 

journey that has up’s and down’s and you can never know if a person is on an up or a down; assuming that people are going through the worst in the present time increases compassion and empathy.  I was interested in quality improvement and patient safety prior to the conference and continue to be interested in the same and hopeful that I will be able to continue attending in future years!  It would be great to have a Partners get-together at future IHI conferences given how many people from all levels attend the conference!