IHQSE Highlights

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The IHQSE Launches Collective to Drive Organizational-level Change

The Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency (IHQSE) at the University of Colorado (CU) Anschutz has launched The IHQSE Collective, an enterprise-level membership opportunity for hospitals and health systems to access the IHQSE's full portfolio of quality, safety, and leadership development programs. The partnership also offers access to a suite of IHQSE's resources including the IHQSE Model for Change (the IHQSE's proprietary improvement model), the IHQSE Opportunity Identifier (a sortable database of more than 100 improvement projects), expert faculty, and hands-on coaching.

"The IHQSE Collective is an exciting next step for the institute," said IHQSE Director, Dr. Jeffrey Glasheen. "With these partnerships, we are expanding the reach of our impact, significantly improving patient outcomes and organizational performance."

IHQSE: Transformation, Not Education

Born out of the need to improve the quality, safety and operational efficiency of care processes, the IHQSE was launched in 2012 with the recognition that change would need to come from the frontlines. As Glasheen says, "It is the frontline providers, nurses, and staff who interact with our patients, our processes and lead our frontline people. They know what isn't working, and they are the ones positioned to fix it. The problem is that most of them haven't been trained to lead change." The IHQSE was built to create the capacity for frontline leaders to drive change.

The IHQSE now comprises seven training programs ini healthcare quality, safety, and leadership with nearly 5,000 healthcare provider alumni, though it's never been solely about education. "From the beginning we said that the IHQSE was not going to be an educational program," Glasheen noted, "but rather, it was going to be a transformational program. Whatever was taught would not live and die in the ethers of a classroom, but would be immediately implemented to drive changes in the processes that impact the patients we have the privilege to serve." The result is improvements in care processes that have impacted nearly 1.5 million patients, generating a collective savings of more than $400 million dollars.

Teams participating in IHQSE programs engaged in group work.

The Problem Was the Process: the Birth of a New Improvement Model

The IHQSE success story didn't occur overnight, rather it took years to learn how to successfully lead and sustain changes in healthcare processes and systems. Most process improvement paradigms focus on building the technical skills for improvement, while ignoring the biggest challenge: behavioral change. As Glasheen puts it, "There is nothing particularly difficult about doing process improvement. These are highly trained individuals who can learn to do things like a process map. The challenging part is getting others to make the necessary changes to implement the intervention." This key factor is overlooked by most improvement methodologies and is what drove Glasheen and his colleagues at the IHQSE to develop their own improvement model.

The IHQSE Model for Change incorporates more than a decade of work at the IHQSE. According to Dr. Emily Gottenborg, director of the IHQSE Improvement Academy, "What we noticed, was that the traditional models of process improvement just weren't yielding us the success rates that we wanted. Largely because they didn't recognize the importance and difficulty of leading behavioral change."

The IHQSE Model for Change is a rigorous, structured, repeatable framework that fuses the technical tools of process improvement, the adaptive tools of change management and the implementation support of expert coaches. "The model includes step-by-step instruction followed by longitudinal coaching support to ensure that teams are implementing the technical skills and tools for change successfully. It turns out, these things can look very easy on a white board but are often extremely difficult to apply on the front lines, and this is where the implementation coaching ensures success," notes Gottenborg.

IHQSE Expansion

Beginning in 2012 with three founding partners on the CU Anschutz campus, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Children's Hospital Colorado, and UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, the IHQSE soon began to get inquiries from individuals and organizations outside of the campus. Glasheen shares, "Even before the pandemic, I was often asked if other hospitals could utilize our programs. This really formed the kernel of the idea for expansion." For the last five years, the IHQSE has offered its programs to individuals outside of the three founding institutions. "We decided we'd pilot our programs with individuals," notes Glasheen, "always knowing that the most impact would be at the organizational level. Essentially, the same issues that drove us to build the IHQSE in the first place exist in nearly every healthcare organization in the country. Before we launched the program, we needed to be sure we had built the infrastructure to fully support the success of our partnering organizations."

The IHQSE Collective Explained

The IHQSE Collective provides an opportunity for organizations from around the country to become institutional members in the IHQSE. Membership benefits include discounted access to IHQSE programs, use of the proprietary IHQSE Model for change, access to the IHQSE Opportunity Identifier, shared insights from across The IHQSE Collective, and a documented financial return of at least 7:1 on the investment.

Discounted Access to IHQSE Programs

Members of The IHQSE Collective have priority access to seven IHQSE programs in quality, safety, and healthcare leadership. Members pay an annual fee, customized based on their specific needs, then 'buy down' that investment as they send individuals and teams through their selected programs. Members also receive access to the Improvement Academy (IA), which is only available to Collective Members. The IA is a 2-day program that trains teams (up to five individuals) on the use of the proprietary IHQSE Model for change to develop, implement, and sustain an improvement projects. Success rates for teams in the IA approach 90%, nearly three times higher than traditional training models.

Use of the IHQSE Model for Change

Most process improvement models focus on building the technical aspects of an intervention without addressing the significant change in behavior that success requires. As a result, only about 30% of change initiatives succeed. As Glasheen explains, "The IHQSE Model for change has been forged over more than a decade and is based on the understanding that lasting change requires technical, adaptive, and implementation skills." The model, which has been used hundreds of times by IHQSE alumni, is proven to be nearly three times more successful than traditional improvement models.

Access to the IHQSE Opportunity Identifier

The IHQSE Opportunity Identifier (OI) encompasses a database of more than 100 successful quality and safety projects completed by IHQSE-supported individuals and teams. Searchable by care area, impact on quality or safety, and financial benefit, the OI provides organizations with a list of proven projects that can be adapted and implemented to achieve their customized goals.

Demonstrated Financial Return

IHQSE organizational partners have historically achieved a minimum 7:1 return on their investment through revenue enhancement and cost savings. While the focus is always on improving outcomes for patients, there is a recognition that this will typically lead to associated improvements in financial performance.

Shared Insights from Collective Members

As Collective Members discover new ways to improve quality, safety and operational efficiency at their organizations, the IHQSE will share their methods and outcomes with other Collective Members to highlight new opportunities for improvement.

A Fully Customizable Approach

An IHQSE Concierge works with organizations every step of the way to ensure they receive the maximum benefit from their participation as Collective Members. From small questions to large-scale program implementation, The IHQSE Collective provides tailored solutions to ensure every partner's success.

Building the Path for Sustained Organizational Change

The establishment of The IHQSE Collective is a vital step in furthering the IHQSE's mission to transform the people and processes that serve patients. By providing this membership opportunity to organizations of all sizes, the IHQSE is expanding the reach of their training and support, ensuring every organization has the tools they need to successfully drive their quality, safety, and operational efficiency imperatives.