IHI Model for Improvement in Healthcare Training Course

Course overview

Healthcare teams are often asked to reduce delays, prevent avoidable harm, improve patient flow or raise reliability, yet projects stall because the problem is too broad, measures are poorly chosen, or changes are introduced without testing them in real conditions. The IHI Model for Improvement provides a disciplined way to turn a service concern into a measurable improvement effort. It helps clinicians, managers and improvement leads focus on a defined population, process and outcome rather than relying on meetings, opinion or large-scale rollout plans.

Across five days, participants apply the three questions of the Model for Improvement: What are we trying to accomplish? How will we know a change is an improvement? What changes can we make that will result in improvement? They learn to write SMART aims, create driver diagrams, select outcome, process and balancing measures, establish operational definitions, collect baseline data, generate change ideas and run Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. The course also covers run charts, basic statistical process control, interpreting variation, stakeholder engagement, implementation planning and sustainment controls.

Teaching combines instructor-led explanation with healthcare cases, small-group analysis and practical workshops using participants' own improvement priorities where appropriate. Teams work through a realistic clinical or care-service scenario, testing changes through sequential PDSA cycles and reviewing results using plotted data. Each participant leaves with a documented Model for Improvement project charter: a scoped aim statement, driver diagram, measurement plan, initial PDSA test sequence and 90-day application plan suitable for review with a sponsor or quality governance group.

The course suits staff leading local quality improvement work as well as managers responsible for sponsoring, measuring or spreading change across clinical, community, social care and operational services.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Formulate a time-bound, equity-aware improvement aim using the IHI Model for Improvement aim statement structure
• Build a driver diagram that links an improvement aim to primary drivers, secondary drivers and testable change ideas
• Define outcome, process and balancing measures with operational definitions, numerator, denominator and data source
• Create a baseline data-collection plan using a measurement plan and sampling approach
• Design and document small-scale PDSA cycles using predictions, test conditions, observations and adaptation decisions
• Plot and interpret run charts and basic statistical process control charts to distinguish common-cause from special-cause variation
• Prioritise change ideas using impact-effort assessment and evidence from process mapping and stakeholder input
• Produce an implementation and sustainment plan with ownership, review cadence, escalation triggers and spread criteria

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Quality Improvement Leads — who structure and support improvement projects across services
• Clinical Service Managers — who must deliver measurable gains in safety, access, flow or patient experience
• Nurses and Allied Health Professionals — who lead frontline tests of change in care pathways
• Medical Staff and Clinical Fellows — who need a practical method for translating audit findings into improvement
• Patient Safety and Risk Managers — who investigate recurring service failures and coordinate corrective action
• Health and Social Care Commissioners — who assess provider improvement plans and performance measures

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require prior formal quality-improvement certification. Participants should be comfortable discussing a healthcare or social care process they know, such as discharge, medication administration, referral handling or appointment access, and should understand basic service measures such as counts, percentages and waiting times. Familiarity with local governance, incident reporting or audit is helpful but not essential. Bring a current improvement opportunity if possible. No prior Lean Six Sigma training, statistical software expertise, coding ability or advanced mathematics is required; chart interpretation is taught from first principles.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led inputs followed by structured healthcare improvement workshops. Participants analyse cases involving delayed discharge, missed observations and referral access, then apply IHI templates to define aims, map drivers, select measures and design PDSA tests. Small groups review sample data in Excel, identify variation signals and defend their next action to a simulated project sponsor. Facilitated peer critique strengthens each project charter. The final session converts learning into a 90-day application plan with named stakeholders, test dates, reporting arrangements and sustainment checks.

Course outline

Day 1: Framing healthcare improvement with the IHI Model

• Quality improvement, assurance, audit and research: distinct purposes and governance implications
• The IHI Model for Improvement and its three improvement questions
• Defining a population, setting and process boundary for an improvement project
• Writing SMART, time-bound and equity-aware aim statements
• Using process maps to locate failure points and hand-offs
• Identifying customers, patients, carers and frontline stakeholders
• Establishing sponsorship, project roles and decision rights

Workshop: Participants convert a broad service concern into a scoped project charter containing a draft aim, target population, boundary and sponsor.

Day 2: Building a measurement system for improvement

• Outcome, process and balancing measures in healthcare improvement
• Operational definitions for numerators, denominators, inclusion rules and exclusions
• Selecting baseline periods, sampling approaches and data sources
• Creating a practical measurement plan and data-collection schedule
• Using driver diagrams to connect aims, drivers and measures
• Addressing data quality, missing data and denominator changes
• Including equity stratifiers in improvement measurement

Workshop: Participants create a driver diagram and measurement plan for their selected improvement aim, including one balancing measure.

Day 3: Generating and testing change ideas

• Generating change ideas from evidence, frontline knowledge and patient experience
• Using change concepts to stimulate service redesign options
• Prioritising candidate changes with impact-effort and feasibility assessment
• The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle as a learning method
• Writing PDSA predictions, test conditions and observation prompts
• Scaling tests from one patient or one shift to wider conditions
• Documenting adaptation, adoption and abandonment decisions

Workshop: Teams design and peer-review a sequence of three linked PDSA cycles for a healthcare process failure.

Day 4: Learning from data and managing variation

• Displaying improvement data over time rather than relying on before-and-after comparisons
• Constructing and annotating run charts in Microsoft Excel
• Run chart rules for shifts, trends, runs and astronomical points
• Common-cause and special-cause variation in service processes
• Introduction to statistical process control chart selection
• Interpreting data alongside qualitative feedback and process observations
• Using findings to adapt the next PDSA cycle and update the driver diagram

Workshop: Participants plot a healthcare dataset, identify variation signals and write a data-based recommendation for the next test.

Day 5: Implementing, sustaining and spreading improvement

• Moving from successful tests to implementation under routine operating conditions
• Readiness assessment for people, process, technology and governance constraints
• Stakeholder engagement and communication plans for clinical change
• Standard work, prompts and visual controls for sustaining gains
• Defining review cadence, ownership and escalation thresholds
• Criteria for spread to another ward, clinic, team or locality
• Presenting an improvement story to sponsors and governance boards

Workshop: Participants finalise and present a 90-day IHI improvement project plan with measures, PDSA sequence, implementation controls and sponsor request.

Tools & standards covered

Institute for Healthcare Improvement Model for Improvement, IHI Driver Diagram, IHI PDSA Worksheet, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions