On a recent cross-country plane ride, I read the entire Institute of Medicine report Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America. If you have a few hours, it’s an interesting read. If you don’t, the executive summary and recommendations are definitely worthwhile. If you can manage only soundbites, then check out the CEO checklist (impressive for its content and list of CEOs who have signed on) and the list of eight recommendations. If I were a healthcare system or hospital CEO, I would be doing some deep soul searching about making the commitment to sign on to the CEO checklist. The continuity thread throughout the report is that healthcare needs to be on a path of continuous learning, and the report articulates what the authors no doubt hope will be a compelling vision for what that learning journey should include. For more on the IOM report, click here.
Mary Logan
AAMI President