On Wednesday March, 21 Dr. Kevin Shah lead the second IHI OpSwap for this year. Students from the School of Medicine, Fuqua Business School and Sanford School of Public Policy were in attendance. Dr. Shah’s talk focused on the importance of quality in healthcare, and how definition of quality can vary based on the perspective of providers, patients, and payers.
Dr. Shah also talked about the principles of quality improvement, including the SixSigma and Lean models – and how these methods have been implemented to improve quality and safety in other fields, such as the aviation industry.
Dr. Shah then discussed ongoing quality improvement and patient safety efforts here at Duke, particularly Duke Primary Care’s efforts to improve care and quality, given examples of the challenges and opportunities for improving care for patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes. He emphasized the necessity of interdisciplinary teams in this process, and the the use of data to drive decision making and measure success.
A big thank you to Dr. Shah for his excellent talk, and to all the student participants!
