Thursday Edition

This long-term care home radically changed the way it operates. Residents say it's working (CBC)

Like so many people contemplating long-term care, Louis Capozzi said he was nervous about what he would find when he started looking at homes. "I heard so many awful things about, you know, people getting not well taken care of, laying in bed, needing to be changed and people hitting them or whatever. You hear all the worst things," he said.

But Capozzi, who is 70 and has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, said he was pleasantly surprised by what he found at Toronto's Lakeshore Lodge, where he's lived since June. More…

How to make Covid the last pandemic (Vox)

What would happen if a pandemic much worse than Covid hit? This is a question that’s been haunting me since the early days of 2020, when it wasn’t clear exactly how deadly Covid-19 was. What is now known as SARS-CoV-1, after all, killed almost 10 percent of people with confirmed infections; MERS, another coronavirus, has had a fatality rate of more than 30 percent in confirmed cases. But neither of those viruses was very transmissible; SARS-CoV-2, better known as Covid, however, was from the start a highly contagious virus, and had it killed at anywhere near the rate of those earlier pathogens, the result would have been horrific. More…

The ongoing race in health care. Who will win? (Healthy Debate)

Before I had even started my first position as a practicing ICU physician, I was a quality improvement convert. Somewhat through serendipity, I ended up at the 2004 Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) National Forum where the famed Donald Berwick proclaimed, “Some is not a number; soon is not a time. Join me in saving 100,000 lives.” That was it for me. I had already learned of the (not often spoken of) patient safety and quality issues in health care and I was now convinced that there was a need for improvement and a science and methodology to get us there. The Institute of Medicine even proclaimed an expectation of a 50 per cent reduction in patient safety incidents within five years of the publication of its To Err is Human report. More…

Learning Together to Promote Joy and Well-Being (IHI)

Working to improve joy and well-being in work can be challenging, so doing it with others can have multiple benefits. Participating teams in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Joy & Well-Being in Work Results-Oriented Learning Network have reported learning new methods, making valuable connections, and getting results by connecting with other organizations. More…

Learn, Share, Connect: Accelerating change during dynamic times (Catalysis)

Learn, share, connect is a phrase that we at Catalysis commonly use to describe our work with the healthcare community. And “catalysis” is a process that accelerates change, which is our mission. So it seemed fitting that we expand upon these ideas for the theme of our upcoming Summit. Learn, share, connect: Accelerating change during dynamic times. But what does that really mean? We are part of a community that is focused on improving healthcare for patients, providers, families, and communities. And by extension, you are part of this community as well. More…