The Cambridge, Mass.-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) on July 17 announced a new initiative designed to help the leaders of patient care organizations to implement quality regimens within their organizations. “The IHI Leadership Alliance will focus on the dual challenge that all health care organizations currently face to deliver superior health care and high value within their individual systems today, while simultaneously innovating new models of tomorrow,” IHI’s leaders said in a press release.
“Health care leaders know they’re being asked to imagine and strategize beyond present realities,” said Alide Chase, IHI Faculty for the Alliance, “but how, precisely to do that, isn’t always clear.” The former Sr. Vice President, Quality and Service Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals added: “Leaders have told us they welcome the formation of an effort that can harness the collective wisdom and energy of the industry. This type of collaboration, more than going at it alone, is likely to yield far better solutions and help organizations prepare for a future that’s as much about creating health as it is about delivering high quality health care.”
Among the organizations involved in the new Alliance are Bellin Health Care System (Green Bay, Wis.), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Gundersen Health System (La Crosse, Wis.), HealthPartners (St. Paul, Minn.), Houston Methodist Health Care, Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City), Contra Costa Regional Medical Center (Martinez, Calif.), Jönköping (Sweden) County Council, Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, Calif.), and North Shore-LIJ Health System (Manhasset, N.Y.).
“With the launch of the Leadership Alliance, IHI is combining its own assets with those of many partnering organizations,” the press release added. “The work of the Alliance is centered on four work streams that aim to build high-performing cross-functional leadership teams, enhance organizational capability and capacity for improvement, develop and implement new models of high-quality, high-value care, and create a collective voice for system leaders.”
