Friday, February 17, 2012

The VHA Annual Clinical Meeting 2012

I have been totally immersed in the VHA Annual Clinical Meeting in Miami FL for the past two days. It is one of the most stimulating meetings of the past year. Peter Pronovost did an outstanding job connecting DO NO HARM to the real work of reducing catheter associated infections. He got raucous applause. My panel comments focused on the book WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson. I told the audience that our School of Population Health was all about "adjacent timing"---the notion that good ideas really do take a long time to come to fruition. We were ready to go to create our school because of 17 years of previous hard work in health policy!! Steven Johnson himself was stimulating and provocative claiming there really is no eureka moment. Other faculty pointed out how far we still have to go to get the kind of cultural change necessary to improve the quality and safety of care.The final speaker, Tom Goetz, is focusing on his book about prevention and wellness----he believes, as do I, that the patient is the source of control. Tom is the EDITOR of WIRED and he knows at a visceral level what he is talking about as a real leader of on line learning. The VHA is a national leader for improvement and I am confident that they will continue to make great headway in changing how we practice to reduce error and improve outcomes and lower costs, all at the same time. HATS off to the VHA for a job well done. I look forward to learning more about their newly funded Hospital Engagement Network, or HEN---one of 26 CMS funded national networks for improvement. Finally, all the attendees got a copy of my book DEMAND BETTER and I signed copies until my hand hurt. A great policy day all around!! DAVID NASH