Pursuing Perfection - Raising the Bar for Health Care Performance
The work of Pursuing Perfection, a project known as Pursuing Perfection - funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), began in 2001. The project is anchored by a shared desire to totally transform health care delivery. There are 13 participants in the US and Europe and their efforts, taken as a whole, offer some of the best evidence yet that fundamental improvement in patient care is possible across and within a wide range of health systems. Most important of all, the Pursuing Perfection sites have learned that the pursuit of perfection, or aiming high, raises the bar on health care performance and leads to clinical and operational results once considered out of reach.
A SEVEN-PART VIDEO SERIES TO HELP RAISE THE BAR
ON HEALTH CARE PERFORMANCE
A unique and compelling seven-part video series, Pursuing Perfection in Health Care focuses on the goal of improving patient outcomes dramatically by helping provider organizations raise the bar for health care performance. These motivational videos are designed to improve the systems of care by stimulating a will for change in health care organizations across the country.
The series draws on the experiences of seven major health care institutions participating in the Pursuing Perfection initiative, a program supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and under the technical direction of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Pursuing Perfection in Health Care was produced by the award-winning filmmaking team, Crosskeys Media.
Real Problems, Real People, Real Solutions
Pursuing Perfection in Health Care takes you on an inspirational journey through a transformation in quality. Each 20-minute video focuses on providers’ struggles and successes in transforming the quality of health care they deliver.
The honest and forthright experiences of health care providers, combined with the moving stories of patients and families, encourage audiences to acknowledge the problems they face in trying to provide high quality medical care, and to seek specific strategies for improving care in their own settings.
The Pursuing Perfection Videos
These videos can be used as powerful tools for change at multiple entry points: management presentations, employee orientations, quality improvement teams, or board meetings. Each video in the series features a stand-alone story spotlighting major quality issues in today’s health care system:
“The Quality Chasm”
Setting the stage for the entire series, this overview follows doctors, nurses, administrators and patients as they reveal their personal experiences and frustrations with the current health care system. This video demonstrates how these agents of change are engaged in closing the gap between the health care we have and the health care we could have.“Involving Patients in Redesigning Care”
Following families and providers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center’s Cystic Fibrosis Center, this video explores how clinical outcomes are improved when patients and families become active participants in the redesign of inpatient and outpatient services.“Planning Care for Chronic Disease”
Provider teams at Cambridge Health Alliance, a group of three hospitals and 21 health care centers in the Boston metro area, are creating partnerships with pediatric asthma patients and their families to manage this chronic disease more effectively. This video shows how patients and providers benefit from taking a planned care approach to chronic care.“Improving Care at the End of Life”
HealthPartners Medical Group & Clinics in Minneapolis is training providers to improve care for terminal patients and their families, particularly in the utilization of hospice and palliative care programs. This video presents intimate profiles of doctors, nurses, patients and families as they address challenging end-of-life issues.“Engaging Doctors in Redesigning Care”
McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, South Carolina developed a system that enables the hospital administration and the medical staff to work together on quality improvement efforts. This video shows how doctors were intimately involved in the development of a successful program to treat patients suffering from Acute Myocardial Infarction.“Safety as a System Property”
In an attempt to reduce patient harm, McLeod Regional Medical Center is transforming its entire medication delivery system. This video documents the importance of moving an institution to a “safety culture” where the system, not the individual, is the primary focus in all efforts to improve the quality of care.“Navigating Complex Systems of Care”
This video reveals how the Pursuing Perfection initiative in Whatcom County, Washington, helps patients with multiple chronic conditions navigate the health care system. It features health care providers who have instituted a series of innovative techniques to help patients manage their diseases, as they seek care in a complex and often confusing delivery system.
A Rich Resource for Transformation
Each video includes a customized 12-page Discussion Guide that provides essential resources for Pursuing Perfection in Health Care and directs the users to Web-based, ancillary materials designed to assist organizations in improving the quality of care at their institutions.
The Discussion Guides are easy to use and filled with practical information on suggested follow-up action steps. Sample questions will help facilitate group conversation and encourage viewers to discuss similar issues in their own settings. The Guides target participants at three levels of staff and leadership: senior managers, middle managers and direct care providers.
Together, the videos and Discussion Guides will inspire and prepare professionals for the challenge of developing individual and organizational paths to pursuing perfection in health care.
Accelerate Your Pursuit of Perfection
Order Pursuing Perfection in Health Care today to start your organization on its improvement journey. Discussion Guides are included with individual and series purchases. Visit http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/PursuingPerfection/ to learn more and to order a copy.
Pursuing Perfection Success Stories
Read about all of the Pursuing Perfection projects to learn about impressive results in safety, mortality, and costs. You'll recognize themes and concepts that are already spreading beyond these core sites: shared care plans, composite measures, leverage points for senior leaders, and multidisciplinary rounds. The revolutionary ideas generated by the Pursuing Perfection work are now driving improvement agendas far beyond this group of pioneers.
Pursuing Perfection organizations are redesigning their systems to create dramatic improvements in all of their major care processes. "Pursuing perfection" means working at three levels: leadership, new designs and innovations and results at the front line.
Brought to You By
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) launched the Pursuing Perfection initiative in 2001 to dramatically improve patient outcomes by helping health care organizations raise the bar for health care performance.The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) serves as the National Program Office for the Pursuing Perfection initiative and as the technical advisor for this video series.
Crosskeys Media, an award winning filmmaking team, produced the video series from over 400 hours of material recorded at seven health care institutions with support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
