An international quiz

#IHI09 I attended the international reception tonight at the IHI National Forum, which is representation from 42 countries. My tablemates (seen here) included people from Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, India, and Canada.

The first order of business was a quiz, to be answered as a team. This was a good ice-breaker and also somewhat informative. Here are some questions. See how you do:

1. The smallest General Practice in the UK is in one of the 70 Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. How many patients are registered with this practice?

A. 300 B. 220 C. 120 D.40

2. What is the maximum number of patients an Italian General Practitioner can enroll?

A. 1000 B. 1300 C. 1500 D. 2000

3. What proportion of the financial compensation of an average English General Practitioner is "pay for performance" for achieving quality goals?

A. 0% B. 5% C. 10% D. 30%

4. In low income economies, which of the following interventions has the largest ability to reduce infant mortality?

A. Oral rehydration solutions B. Strong primary care C. Antibiotic availability

D. Clean running water E. Breast feeding

5. In a recent international survey of GPs, which country had the highest percentage of doctors using electronic medical records in their practice?

A. New Zealand B. Netherlands C. Germany D. USA

6. The Swedish government has announced a national fund to support the achievement of equality goals in healthcare, including gender and race equality in the health services. What is the fund worth?

A. $25 million B. $80 million C. $100 million D. $120 million

7. A woman in the West Midlands region of the English NHS recently became the oldest person in the world to have a hip replacement. How old is she?

A. 99 B. 101 C. 103 D. 108

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Answers: D, C, D, E, B, B, C

Auction for the Borum closes tonight

Our online auction to support the Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center closes tonight at 8pm. There are many wonderful items. Please bid generously here.

The Eliot School artistically helps The Borum

The Eliot School offers classes in crafts and fine arts to people of all ages – both at their schoolhouse in the heart of Boston and through the school partnership program, which sends teachers to classrooms throughout the city.

Founded in 1676 as a grammar school for colonial, African, and Native children, the school turned its focus to the manual arts in 1889. Since then, the school has taught craftsmanship and the pleasures of creativity. They are known for their excellent faculty, welcoming atmosphere, small class size, and the charm of their historic site in Jamaica Plain.

You can bid at our online auction to support the Sidney Borum, Jr. Health Center and join instructor Cecilia Galluccio for a new class, Burning Art & Design onto Wood. Here's the description:

With judicious use of wood-burning tools, drawings can elegantly decorate any wooden surface. In this workshop, learn from a compulsive doodler who creates stunning designs on bowls, spoons, tiles and furniture. Each student will complete a decorative tile just in time for Mothers Day. All materials will be supplied. (2 Sundays, 10 am–12:30 pm, Apr. 25–May 2)

What a great present to give to a member of your family or a friend!

Spear talks about the right info

#IHI09 I ran into Steve Spear at the IHI National Forum. He was autographing copies of his book, Chasing the Rabbit. As always, he has something thoughtful to offer.

Here is a recent article he wrote about what kind of information is useful in process improvement. Here's the key line:

Some organizations undercut their ability to discover their way to greatness by confusing the information needed to see problems with the information needed to solve them. So, they overburden staff with establishing the former and then underarm them in tackling the latter.

I am sure this is the case in our hospital and others. We all have incident reporting systems that collect a ton of data but that might not be particularly useful in providing knowledge to the organization. Then, we might not have enough data to really drill down and solve a particular problem that we see.

Food for thought for your hospital?

Dr. Ship's Speech

If you -- as a health care provider or patient, or someone who knows one -- watch no other video about health care, watch this one of Dr. Amy Ship's acceptance speech when she was awarded this year's Compassionate Caregiver Award by the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center. It is an extraordinary summation of the meaning of compassionate care.

The Sekou Effect

#IHI09 This afternoon's keynote speaker at the IHI National Forum, at first blush, would appear to be as far removed from Don Berwick as you could imagine. While that was true about his mode of delivery, the message was remarkably consonant with Don's.

The performer was Sekou Andrews, who bills himself as a motivational poet/strategic presenter. You see him here with Forum Co-chair Polly Arango.

You really had to be there to get the full flavor of Sekou's presentations, but I attach this short video clip of his opening moments to give you a sense of his energy and creativity. This audience was ENGAGED!

Real time progress report on process improvement

#IHI90 "How am I doing?" used to say NY's Mayor Ed Koch, relying on the wisdom of the crowd in various settings to give him feedback. Well, here at the IHI National Forum, we have a real-time status report of how the attendees feel they are doing on a variety of process improvements. Using the IHI's Process Improvement Map as a guide, attendees were asked to place pins saying whether a particular topic was either "the most challenging" (Red) or "where you've had the most success" (Silver).

Mark Graban happened to come by and noted that this is a nice analog representation of the current status of things -- which now, ironically, I present here in digital format.

I photographed a few of the subject areas within the three process categories (leadership, support, patient care). You can see for yourself how this group of health care professionals feels things are going. There is definitely some "clumping" of red and silver stick pins. Maybe the "wisdom of this crowd" will be used by IHI to help set priorities and guide program enhancements over the coming months.