Building Nurse Leaders Through the Institute for ...

1 LeadershipDIMENSIONB uilding Nurse LeadersThrough the Institute forHealthcare ImprovementOpen School StudentQuality LeadershipAcademyCattleya May, MS, FNP-BC; Katharine N. Cutting, BSN, SNThe Institute for healthcare improvement is an independent not-for-profitorganization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a leading innovatorin health and health care improvement with a global important part of the IHI is the development and evolution of the Open School. Launched in September 2008, the online communitycurrently includes hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. Thegoals of the Open School are consistent with the IHI initial concepts: tobuild will for change, seek out innovation, share expertise, and buildleaders. Each year, the Open School awards scholarships to select studentsto attend a Leadership Student Quality Leadership Academy allows students to network withother future nurses, physicians, and health care administrators andexplores how they feel about leadership.

2 This is important to nursing as wewill need to replace many leadership positions in the future, but oftennew nurses are uncertain about leadership roles.[DIMENSCRITCARENURS. 2014;33(2):66/69]The Institute for healthcare improvement (IHI) is anindependent not-for-profit organization based in Cambridge,Massachusetts. It is a leading innovator in health andhealth care improvement with a global following. Thecore values are simple, based around the principle thateveryone should get the best care and health possible. For66 Dimensions of Critical care NursingVol. 33 / No. 2 DOI: 2014 Wolters Kluwer health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is years, the mission remains clear: to advance health careimprovement and patient safety and prepare the next gen-eration of health the initiatives such as the Triple Aim, to 100 000lives and 5 Million lives campaign, the organization hasprovided models of care , research, and education to achievequality and safe care for our patients.

3 In a sense, it is oftenreferred to as the true north in health important part of the IHI is the development andevolution of the Open School, an idea conceived at the2007 IHI National Forum. A small group came togetherto talk about creating an online tool for quality improve-ment and education. The group envisioned educating thenext generation of improvers. Launched in September2008, the online community currently includes hundreds ofthousands of students worldwide2(Table).The evolution of Open School is consistent with theIHI initial concepts: to build will for change, seek out in-novation, share expertise, and build IHI Open School offers a range of online coursesin patient safety, improvement capability, quality, cost,and value, person- and family-centered care , triple aim forpopulations, and leadership.

4 Through the Open School,you can take courses, join local chapters, and find , courses are free for all students, residents, andfaculty, and available to health care professionals for amodest annual fee. Currently, students of medicine, nurs-ing, public health , pharmacy, health administration, den-tistry, and other allied health professions learn about qualityimprovement and patient safety at no charge!3 The IHI offers continuing education contact hours forcompletion of the IHI Open School online courses. Cur-rently, more than 25 contact hours for nurses, physicians,and pharmacists are available. Courses are also approvedby the National Association forHealthcare Quality to pro-vide CPHQ CE credit. However, many are now using thecourses as part of the curriculum in educational Leaders EMBRACE THE IHIOPEN SCHOOLOne of the IHI Open School s goals is for schools andorganizations around the world to integrate the coursesinto their curricula and training programs, giving learnersthe opportunity to gain these crucial skills that will helpthem become change agents in health care .

5 Some schoolsand organizations require completion of all 16 courses inour Basic Certificate, whereas others select modules toteach specific concepts or use them as precourse reading orsupplements to course number of institutions now require students to com-plete select Open School learning modules or all 16 coursesincluded in the Basic Certificate. Some of these includeBaylor College of Medicine, Boston College School ofNursing, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Johns HopkinsUniversity School of Nursing, Loyola University School ofNursing, Texas A&M University College of Medicine,University of Alabama Birmingham School of Nursing,University of Colorado College of Nursing, University ofMinnesota Duluth, University of San Francisco School ofNursing and health Professions, University of TennesseeHealth Science Center College of Medicine, and Universityof WisconsinYMilwaukee College of institutions, such as Baylor College of Medicine,created an elective that includes the Open School curric-ulum.

6 Emmanuel College Graduate School of Nursing be-gan offering 1 open school course as an option. Studentsloved the courses, many continuing on to complete ad-ditional modules. The response was extremely positive,and now 20 students seeking their master s degree innursing from Emmanuel will earn their IHI Open SchoolBasic Certificate in the next year, thanks to the new re-quirement in the Advanced Roles in Professional Nursingcourse. Prof Nola Della-Monica feels the courses are agreat fit for graduate students, saying, Quality and safetybring us back to the basics of nursing, the things that weshould care about, she says. It s about giving the bestpatient care . 5At Boston College William F. Connell School of Nurs-ing, students begin to take selected courses integrated intotheir first clinical experience, completing modules thatinclude Introduction to Patient Safety, Respect and Dig-nity, and Communication and the last few years, the IHI Open School hashosted in the Student Quality Leadership Academy (SQLA),sponsored by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, andheld at the IHI headquarters in Harvard SQLA allows students to network with otherfuture nurses, physicians, and health care administratorsand explore how they feel about leadership.

7 This is im-portant to nursing as we will need to replace many leader-ship positions in the future, but often new nurses areuncertain about leadership roles. During the 2-day forum,they are challenged to think about their role as Leaders andask themselves questions about leadership: Who inspiresthem? How do they define leadership? Over the pastTABLEI nstitute for healthcare ImprovementOpen School at a Glance (UpdatedDecember 1, 2013)162,477 Students and residents have registered on ,348 Students and residents have completed an IHI OpenSchool online course20,480 Students and residents have earned the Basic Certificateof Completion622 Chapters have been started in 65 countriesMarch/April 201467 Copyright 2014 Wolters Kluwer health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

8 Unauthorized reproduction of this article is years, 5 students from Boston College have been awardedscholarships to this event. Graduates have spoken and pub-lished about their experience and have continued to use IHImaterials and support in their clinical June 2013, 2 students from Boston College at-tended the most recent leadership forum and recount theirexperiences and discuss how it has shaped their profes-sional May, MS, FNP-BCI was first introduced to the IHI Through a professor, whotaught me last year in the Research Methods for Evidence-Based Practice course at Boston College Connell School ofNursing. It was in this class that I learned the importanceof being able to critically appraise evidence that supportsnursing practice.

9 I was amazed at how research can be ap-plied by new nurses like me who are interested in improvingpatient care and quality. In addition, my professor encour-aged joining the IHI Open School, where the free onlinecourses on leadership and quality improvement comple-mented my nursing-focused education, allowing me to seea comprehensive picture of health as a newly graduated Nurse practitioner, I willjoin many professionals who are expected to face the chal-lenges of health care . The community at IHI prepared meto engage in health care with a new focus on quality andsafety. I look forward to being an active participant in im-proving the quality of health care and am fortunate tohave the opportunity to gain the leadership skills that areessential to meeting this daunting a graduate student, I applied for a scholarship toattend the SQLA.

10 It was an amazing the IHI SQLA, I was among the 150 students fromvarious professions who came together to learn from in-spirational and influential Leaders . Donald Berwick, MD,MPP, the founder of IHI, led our 2-day session and openedthe first morning with an introduction to Langley, Nolan,and Nolan s foundational model for improvement andDeming s Plan, Do, Study, Act first day included interactive lectures from AndreaKabcenell, MPH, RN; Frank Federico, RPh; and AmyWasserman, who each presented on A Framework forLeading improvement and Innovation, Effective Team-work and Communication in Delivering Safe and ReliableCare, and Managing Conflict, each presentation, I felt more empowered tomake a lasting change. As the program progressed, I learnedthat leadership is not about a position or a title but rather aset of critical behaviors that arecarried out to deliver the afternoon session, Barry Dorn, MD, gaveus an eye-opening talk on health care Negotiation andConflict Resolution.