IHI (US) Open School Online Courses

[Alies Maybee]

Open School courses are broken into digestible, 15- to 40-minute lessons.

The Basic Certificate in Quality & Safety includes a number of courses of interest to advisors even though they are targeted to professionals.

If you have taken any of these courses, please comment below.

[Carolyn Canfield]

When I was first starting out, knowing nothing -- NOTHING -- about healthcare improvement or patient safety, someone told me about the IHI, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. It is based in the USA in Boston and has worldwide operations in partnership with healthcare providers and medical training institutions.

First, I fell in love with the speeches of founder Don Berwick (check him out on YouTube, or the complete keynote speeches on the IHI website for free registration). Here was a philosophy of professional sensitivity to the experience of patients that I could learn from. Years later President Obama would appointed Don Berwick to head up Health and Human Services to implement what's now called Obamacare. Knowing 2/3rds of the Senate wouldn't confirm him, he worked right up to the confirmation deadline then stepped down.

Well back to 2011. I had the good fortune to be told by a senior Canadian health leader that I should attend the annual National Forum in Orlando in December --and then got some assistance to get invited, thus an excuse to ask a number of friendly organizations for funding to cover the substantial cost. While there, I asked why couldn't I get free access to the Open School curriculum since I didn't have the incentive of a prospective paid career in healthcare. A Vice President said yes, and WOO HOO I immediately enrolled and completed the basic curriculum in just a few days at full steam.

I found the courses to be exactly what I wanted: an understanding of what healthcare quality means, and how to make improvements. It was vocabulary and names and techniques. I didn't imagine I'd every conduct a project, but I wanted to be able to talk to people who do.

Since that time, for another five years, I've lobbied the IHI to let patient leaders like us into the curriculum. No such luck. Students have free entry if their university subscribes to the Open School, as most healthcare training universities in Canada do. Inquire at your nearest institution of higher learning and find out. Here is the website to look up who's got a chapter. They might let you join and thus get entry. What have you got to lose by asking? I haven't checked out what happens if you sign up on the IHI.org website and try to start the courses. Maybe you can write to IHI as I did and ask for special permission? If you think this is important, maybe we can lobby for special permission for PAN members?

From my current perspective, I'd say the IHI curriculum is still a great start, a good foundation upon which you can grow in whatever direction makes sense for your interests and opportunities. The online lessons are easy and fun with navigation through the courses quite straight forward.

Good luck!! And I'll still keep hammering away at IHI to open the door for us. If we're that important to improvement, let us learn the basics. The team that works together should train together! Etc.

Cheers, Carolyn

[Kimberly Strain]

Hi Carolyn,

What has stopped me from taking these courses is they are not free as you've mentioned. I would love to see if PAN members would be able to access these courses. Have any contacts at IHI that could somehow find a way for us to take them?

[Carolyn Canfield]

Hi Kimberly,

Thanks for your encouragement. I do have connections at IHI and will brush off any dust that may have settled. Actually, the interval since last time may help!

You've given me a fresh reason to make the pitch effectively. Thanks. Stay turned!! This would be an excellent "perk" of membership, wouldn't it?

If you and others have a perspective or anecdote that would add to my request's impact, please let me know here or in a private message to me through this groupsite.

Thank you!

Cheers,
Carolyn

[Kimberly Strain]

Hi Carolyn,

As patients, there are so free training options out there, having access to something like this would give us yet another tool available. Plus, if they wanted to offer this in the spirit of #PatientsIncluded, maybe that would be another reason to provide access. And yes, that would be a great perk of membership to PAN.

[Carolyn Canfield]

Ah, that's NO free training operations! What I've said to myself is that we cannot expect everyone to work as hard as I have to learn. It's been a full time preoccupation for many years. Just tio decide to step in as a volunteer with the Patient Voices Network and imagine that anything I had to say would be valued was a huge leap.

Taking the IHI Open School curriculum would give us the needed perspective on how the system sees us, as well as a boost in our comprehension of the swirl around us.

At the start, I was astonished at so much effort going into patient safety. In time, the other shoe dropped -- yes, but where are the patients who can describe harm and suggest remedies in practice?? Sadly, that still isn't the way patient safety is seen.

Patient safety is described as the absence of harm, but almost no systems ask patients what's harmful. Thus, patient safety is the system's view of what is unsafe and what is safe. Harm remains in the unknown world of the patient.

Perhaps that is why healthcare workers are often so astonished when they themselves receive care! How could this be a surprise?? Only if the patient perspective is missing in their daily work.

I've tried in the past and will try again to persuade IHI that patients who are aware of the patient safety "science" and its perspective on care improvement will be far more adept at focusing their skills in the right places, than if they are simply dropped into a project as an advisor.

Context is everything. Understanding context and culture on the inside of healthcare improvement will give us a much greater impact for time and engergy expended. IHI has seemed to foster an idealized fantasy of the perfect patient partner who is unspoiled by system knowledge, only lived experience from the outside. That's demeaning and patronizing.

I'm ready to write!!

Cheers, Carolyn

[Annette McKinnon]

Interesting what you say about patient safety. I see the CPSI Patient Safety Officer Training courses offered online regularly, and so I emailed CPSI about patients being included in the training. They said No way - patients were involved in the design of course modules and that was enough. I joined Patients For Patient Safety just because of that frustration.

Recently a local Children's rehab hospital (Holland Bloorview) decided to provide the course to their patients and family and now it is being offered to patients in November. Luckily (haha I volunteered) I am on the curriculum committee so will be there at the course.

Progress in small areas.

Now all the committee has to do is manage to find hospitals to pay for patients to attend.

[Gail Bellissimo]

Annette - was there any reason given for the "No Way" answer?

[Gail Bellissimo]

Absolutely Carolyn, if the concept is 'do not harm' then it would have to up to those that harm could possibly come to, to determine and define what 'harm' is.

I would think the 'idealized fantasy of the perfect patient partner' would be one who is well informed! It's crucial that patient partners need to be beyond the advocacy phase of engagement. I contribute to any conversation or project based on my experience in addition to any background or current information I am provided with. Having an equal footing as it were. If the idea of patient engagement is inclusion then provide me with addition knowledge that is going to help "me" help "you" (by which I mean Healthcare, et al). Indeed, context is everything.

[Annette McKinnon]

They did not actually say "no way", they just argued against every point I made in favour of having patients included in the Safety Officer Training Courses. It seems that their thinking has evolved since then, encouraged by Holland-Bloorview taking the initiative, and funding the very first course.

In fact some (at least one) of the "Master Facilitators" is a patient, and when I decided to join Patients For Patient Safety, they did accept me as a member.

It seems that my ability to motivate myself will have to mature - I get more done when there are authority-oriented obstacles in the way of accomplishing change that I want to see.

My main argument for patients and family being included in safety training was that with Patient and Family Advisory Committees (PFACs) mandatory in every Ontario hospital, there are going to be more of us on Safety and Infection Control Committees, and we need to know enough to be effective members and team players.

Annette

[Carolyn Canfield]

I wonder if I wrongly tried to straighten out Kimberly's "There are so free options" as "There are no free options..."? Perhaps that should instead read "There are so few options..."? Perhaps both are true! Sorry to add confusion rather than clarity. But this is a good discussion.

It is the height of irony that at one time I was invited and did teach a several hour component of the Canadian Patient Safety Officer course when it was offered in Vancouver. Students were all healthcare professionals, including a team from a hospital in Hong Kong who had never heard of a patient instructor and were thrilled to meet me (souvenir photos and all).

My contribution was about why and how to involve patients in partnering in safety initiatives. It was well received. Two of my fellow instructors have become increasingly close collaborators over the years. In any case, I was invited to teach the same module for the next course offered in Ottawa six months later, again to favourable reviews. When the national course coordinator then retired and was replaced, I never heard another peep from them.

I wonder if this was about the same time you, Annette, were negotiating access and participation in Patients for Patient Safety (PFPS) Canada

Now that there are PFACs mandated in Ontario and Quebec, I would urge that training for patient to learn about patient safety and improvement methodology could not be more valuable. I'd suggest that this training be free and optional. The IHI online Open School curriculum is appropriate, as it is designed for a worldwide following.

Cheers, Carolyn

[Annette McKinnon]

I have seen the modules sitting there on their site, and went through one on my own - it's a huge amount and all free. This is what the upcoming course is going to cover.

Opening: validate importance of patients participating as teachers to help advance patient safety

Plenary sessions 1 & 3 to address Gaps in Patient Safety: a call to action and What is Patient Safety?

Then they are covering Modules 1, 3, 4, 5, 15 and some Action Modules (1 and 3) that help people learn Teaching Skills

There will be hands on practice and group discussions too of course, which is very valuable.

So if you want to start somewhere with self-learning these are the specific modules that are hi-lighted for the event in November.

They have a link to the program online but knowing the module numbers may help

http://www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca/en/education/PatientSafetyEducationProgram/Pages/PSEP-Toronto-2017-11.aspx

Annette

[Carolyn Canfield]

Hi all,

So CPSI is offering a two-day course this fall in Toronto for patients to learn about patient safety, called "Become a Patient and Family Leader Patient Safety Trainer". It costs $899 per person plus HST plus hotel and travel. They apparently expect you have a healthcare organization as a sponsor.

Now hear this --- there's an alternative to go deeper on your own. You can follow an information rich self-teaching patient safety course online. For free. Maybe a steep learning curve, but you can take your time. You can download the content for off line work. You won't earn any formal credit but you will certainly learn. And this door may possibly close, because it seems too good to be true.

The Canadian Paitent Safety Institute has its PSEP course curriculum posted here that also includes webinars. That's Patient Safety Education Program (TM), first developed in 2011 and then revised in 2015 aimed at health care professionals.

The slide decks are posted and downloadable with written notes to narrate each slide. There are oodles of references to drill deeper. I've just taken a quick look, and there are some missing module links. You might find that there are other holes in the flow or in individual modules. But I would say, this is excellent traditional patient safety content. You should be able to make your own and use.

Just dipping in will be adequate, if all you want is to comprehend vocabulary and the most general concepts. That will enable you to contribute substantially more effectively than many practitioners and most patient advisors who haven't been exposed to this foundation. And you will feel more confident, I feel sure. Bear in mind that perspectives on improving patient safety are evolving. But to talk to today's practitioners, this is the stuff.

Give it a quick investigation and see what you think. Am I right?

Of course, I'd love to see you dive into this on your own. So is this within our individual capacity? Might this be interesting enough to warrant a PAN discussion topic for those who'd like to work their way through with others to share questions and ideas? I suppose we could form a subgroup within this group site to benefit collectively as a patient safety interest group. Let me know!

Please offer your responses here, and let's see where this might go. Or not go. Or go later. Thanks for your time reading and investigating.

Cheers,
Carolyn