IHI’s Open School, Now with 80,000 Online Students,
Continues to Expand Globally
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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Cambridge, MA – Mexico’s Vice Minister of Health (Integration and Development), German Fajardo Dolci, urged the country’s 80 medical schools, 50 nursing schools (awarding RN degrees), professional societies, and health care organizations to participate in the learning and activities of the IHI Open School for Health Professions. The IHI Open School was created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an independent not-for-profit organization that works with health care providers and leaders throughout the world to achieve safe and effective health care.
The IHI Open School, now more than three years old, is transforming health care education around the world by offering online courses on quality improvement and patient safety, and encouraging the integration of improvement methodologies into established curricula. In just a short period of time, the IHI Open School has made significant contributions to health professional education and training, with more than 80,000 registered students and residents, and 402 Chapters in 46 U.S. states and 54 countries.
“Like much of the world today, Mexico is focused on providing better care at a lower cost to its population,” said Dr. Enrique Ruelas, IHI Senior Fellow and former Secretary of the General Health Council of Mexico. “Providing Mexico’s medical and nursing students with the quality improvement and patient safety skills from the IHI Open School is an important step toward making that a reality. The Vice Minister’s leadership, support, and strong endorsement of the IHI Open School will help create a permanent expectation of, and means of achieving, quality improvement in the Mexican health care system.”
To make it possible for students in the health professions in Mexico and Latin America to access improvement knowledge, 12 IHI Open School courses have been translated into Spanish and nine courses have been translated into Portuguese during the past year. Latin American students and health professionals can access the translated courses for free.
Vice Minister German Fajardo Dolci announced the initiative on February 14, with Pedro Delgado, Executive Director, IHI; Ruelas; and Dr. Arturo Martinez, Faculty Advisor from the Monterrey Institute of Technology Chapter in Monterrey, Mexico. Representatives from medical and nursing schools in Mexico also attended the announcement. The Ministry of Health is complementing the OpenSchool’s online courses with work-related projects and will be awarding a diploma for course completion in continuous improvement, patient safety, and health leadership.
“The IHI Open School is really a paradigm shift in health-related education on a global scale and is a much-needed supplement to the traditional curricula, which focus more on competency than on improvement,” said Delgado. “Quality improvement and patient safety skills are vital to the next generation of health professionals. We are pleased to see the IHI Open School courses adopted by academic centers to augment traditional curricula worldwide.”
An interprofessional online community for students, teachers, faculty, and professionals from all health disciplines, the IHI Open School strives to advance and build skills in patient safety and quality improvement through education. IHI Open School students come from all areas of health-related education, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and health administration. Leading medical schools such as Stanford University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, and Johns Hopkins University, among many others, have started IHI Open School Chapters. In online courses such as “Introduction to Patient Safety” and “Fundamentals of Improvement,” developed by leading practitioners in the health care improvement field, students learn invaluable skills and techniques that will help prepare them to lead quality improvement and patient safety initiatives.
About IHI:
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (www.IHI.org) is an independent not-for-profit organization that works with health care providers and leaders throughout the world to achieve safe and effective health care. IHI focuses on motivating and building the will for change, identifying and testing new models of care in partnership with both patients and health care professionals, and ensuring the broadest possible adoption of best practices and effective innovations. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, IHI mobilizes teams, organizations, and increasingly nations, through its staff of more than 100 people and partnerships with hundreds of faculty around the world.
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