Overview
Why Healthcare Quality Is An Issue
A Broken System
Timeline
The Current State Of Affairs: Key Organizations In Healthcare Quality And Safety
Organizational Approaches To Improving Quality
Check Your Understanding
Incentives For Quality
Where Do We Go From Here? Vision For The Future
Summary

Where Do We Go From Here? Vision For The Future

The chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Dr. Donald Berwick, is a physician and radical visionary about the right healthcare system for America. Dr. Berwick and the IHI simply state the desired qualities of the future healthcare system as follows:

We aim for healthcare for all with:

  • No needless deaths
  • No needless pain or suffering
  • No helplessness in those served or serving
  • No unwanted waiting
  • No waste


“Great fragments don't necessarily add up to a great system. To make healthcare as good as we want it to be -- as good as our patients and communities deserve it to be -- we need to perfect not ourselves, but our interactions with each other. Doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals, staff, executives, and managers -- we are all in this together. And together we can achieve improvements that none of us can achieve alone.

"We envision a system of care in which those who give care can boast about their work, and those who receive care can feel total trust and confidence in the care they are receiving."

Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP

Many agree with Berwick that interactions and communication across the system are the key to transforming the healthcare system. See Module: Culture of Safety for more detail.

 

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Patient safety module series used with permission from Duke University
© Duke University