IHI.org - A resource from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement
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Innovation Communities
Available through the IMPACT network or on a direct-enroll basis, IHI’s most intensive front-line improvement work happens in Learning and Innovation Communities.  These are collaborative change laboratories in which teams from a wide variety of organizations work with each other and IHI faculty to rapidly test and implement meaningful, sustainable change within a specific topic area.
Innovation Communities
Learning and Innovation Community: Redesigning the Clinical Office Practice
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. This Community helps clinicians and staff in ambulatory care practices – including primary, specialty, and ancillary care – increase access to services and efficiency, and redesign for better outcomes of care. Programming focuses on: improving access, efficiency, and the delivery of patient-centered planned care for patients with multiple and/or complex chronic conditions (such as heart failure, COPD, depression, and diabetes); and maps to the NCQA Standards and Guidelines for Physician Practice Connections® – Patient-Centered Medical Home (PPC–PCMH™).
Learning and Innovation Community: Transforming Care at the Bedside
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. Hospitals participating in this community will focus on engaging front-line staff, optimizing communication among care team members, supporting and involving patients and families, improving safety (for example, by preventing inpatient falls), reducing waste and improving key processes of care, creating patient-centered healing environments, and improving work environments through space redesign.
Learning and Innovation Community: Improving Flow Through Acute Care Settings
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. The Improving Flow community is focused on impacting system-level change to improve flow through the hospital setting while maintaining or improving the current level of quality.
Learning and Innovation Community: Improving Perinatal Care
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. Adverse events during labor and delivery can impose a heavy physical, psychological, and financial toll on the baby, family, care providers and the community. In this Learning and Innovation Community, teams will examine and develop processes that help create a culture of patient safety and reduce birth trauma by implementing reliable, evidence-based treatment plans, based on IHI’s bundle work, and improve communications between care teams and families.
Learning and Innovation Community: Operational and Clinical Improvement in the Emergency Department
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. Unnecessary delays in Emergency Departments contribute to poor medical outcomes, frustrated and unhappy patients, increased cost from waste and rework, potential harm, and stress for both patients and caregivers. This Learning and Innovation Community will explore proven strategies to dramatically reduce operational cycle times and improve patient flow within the Emergency Department.
Learning and Innovation Community: Reducing Hospital-Acquired Infections (MRSA, VRE, C. diff)
 FOR CURRENT MEMBERS ONLY We are no longer accepting new participants in this Community. Health care-associated infections remain a major cause of morbidity, mortality and cost despite concerted efforts of infection control professionals for nearly a half-century. Recently, treatment of these infections has become more complex due to an alarming rise in antibiotic resistance. The aim of this Community will be to significantly reduce health care-associated infections due to MRSA, VRE, and C. diff.
Learning and Innovation Community: Improving Outcomes for High-Risk and Critically Ill Patients
 Organizations have the option to participate in this Community either through membership in IMPACT or through direct enrollment in the Community. There is mounting evidence that reliable, timely and compassionate care for high-risk and critically ill people is achievable. The aim of this Community is for hospitals to achieve improvements by focusing on specific units in the hospital and also addressing the entire system of care for high-risk and critically ill patients in the hospital.