IHI’s Top Picks of 2021

How do you sum up a year like 2021? We have all been through yet another year like no other. Many of us working to improve health and health care are looking for answers or signs of hope but can find it challenging to sort through the massive amounts of information coming our way.

To do our part to help, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) offers this summary of valuable content you may have missed (or may want to revisit). We’ve combed through the many blog posts, tools, videos, online courses, and publications IHI produced on a range of topics in the last 12 months, and hope you find our choices below, in no particular order, useful, thought-provoking, or inspiring:

• As COVID-19 compels us to learn how to manage health care improvement in new ways at an accelerated pace, it is a good time to reexamine the true meaning of quality. Building on decades of scholarship and drawing upon insights from the pandemic, IHI published Whole System Quality: A Unified Approach to Building Responsive, Resilient Health Care Systems, our most popular new white paper of 2021. The video summarizing the white paper and interview with one of its authors (“What Does It Mean to Rethink Quality?”) were also among the most popular videos and blog posts, respectively, of the last 12 months.
• In 2019, only 25 percent of US-based health care leaders surveyed by IHI identified health equity as one of their organization’s top three priorities. In July 2021, IHI conducted a poll to better understand current attitudes about health equity work in the United States, and the percentage of leaders naming health equity as one of their organization’s top priorities more than doubled to 58 percent. IHI President and CEO Kedar Mate, MD, discussed the opportunities (and risks) this significant shift presents for health care.
• Addressing equity became less and less siloed in 2021 as it became clearer that upholding justice both internally and externally is part of a more holistic view of workforce safety and because equity work is joy work.
• As we continue to navigate the ever-evolving pandemic, resources for supporting vaccine uptake and the broad expansion of telehealth (including the IHI white paper, Telemedicine: Ensuring Safe, Equitable, Person-Centered Virtual Care) have been among the most popular IHI website downloads this year.
• The demands of COVID-19 have put tremendous strain on health care workers. Many organizations are seeking practical approaches to support well-being, including ways to create space for joy in work amid crisis and change, take action to promote workforce well-being, and help leaders at all levels care for staff well-being. The IHI Open School free online course, L 102: Mental Health and Well-being During and After COVID-19, may help support your organization’s efforts. While some questioned whether it was possible (or even advisable) to pursue joy in work during the pandemic, a collaborative in Scotland found that focusing on value helped to improve staff engagement and morale, reduce costs, and enhance patient safety during the pandemic.
• How to build a culture of safety is a perennially favorite topic and this year was no different, with suggested approaches that include debriefing to link safety and wellness, co-designing maternal health improvements, and developing patient safety mindfulness.
• In response to popular demand, the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative developed How to Have Conversations with Older Adults About “What Matters.” This action-oriented guide offers suggested phrases and sample questions to start conversations with older adults about their goals and preferences (including, but not limited to, care through the end of life). The short guide works well as a companion piece to What Matters to Older Adults? A Toolkit for Health Systems to Design Better Care with Older Adults and can be found with a range of other Age-Friendly resources.
• In a preview of his IHI Forum 2021 keynote, Kedar Mate reflected on his personal experience as a health care provider and as IHI’s CEO as well as what research tells us about how to repair trust with individual patients, in our organizations, and throughout our health and health care systems.
• And, finally, as we look ahead to 2022, let’s take another moment to reflect on the 30th anniversary IHI celebrated in 2021. IHI President Emeritus and Senior Fellow Don Berwick shared stories and insights about IHI’s founding and history. In a statement about the anniversary, Kedar Mate said, “[IHI] will continue to build on what we do best — generating optimism, harvesting fresh ideas, and strengthening local capabilities. We will seek to advance improvement science methods and we will center equity in all of our work. IHI is not just adapting to changes in our world but innovating and sparking action to drive the future changes to health and care that we need.”