Q&A with Jill Duncan, Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)

RamaOnHealthcare October 17, 2024

A deep dive into this year’s IHI Forum Dec 08–11, 2024, Orlando, FL, USA

Today, RamaOnHealthcare talks with Jill Duncan, Vice President at IHI.

Jill Duncan, Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)

RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us! To start things off, can you tell us about your role at IHI?

Jill Duncan (JD): Thanks for having me. I’m Jill Duncan, RN, MS, MPH, and I’m a Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). I oversee IHI’s networks, which bring together health care organizations and improvement leaders to generate knowledge, coordinate action, share resources, and leverage their influence and experience.

ROH: This year marks the 36th annual IHI Forum – what makes this conference so successful?

JD: First, it’s the people. The IHI Forum is a convening and celebration of the individuals, organizations, and collaborators that are impacting people and communities around the globe, and their willingness to share and learn together. The Forum attracts a diverse range of health care professionals and strives to address the most pressing issues in health care, ensuring that the content is timely and applicable to real-world challenges. The IHI Forum experience, content, and connections continue to evolve, but IHI has found enduring success in staying true to its Forum mission to be the most trusted, valued convener of people, ideas, and connections in the global improvement community.

ROH: How have the focus areas of IHI and the Forum evolved over the past 3 decades?

JD: Perhaps it’s best to start with the longstanding pillars of the Forum program, including quality improvement methodologies, patient safety, systems thinking, and the science of improvement. This was the framing of the earliest Forums and is consistent with IHI’s mission, methods, and the 2024 IHI Forum experiences.

Over the decades and reflecting IHI’s collaboration with the global health care field, the program has evolved and improved driven by partnerships with patients and family caregivers and the influence of IHI’s relationships across the global improvement community. This evolution has amplified the focus on the IHI Triple Aim and is inclusive of equity, population health, social drivers of health, age-friendly health systems, and workforce well-being. Emerging topics such as behavioral health integration and community partnerships have also gained prominence.

The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the importance of preparedness, public health, and crisis management. Most recently, the program has shifted to emphasize care operating systems, digital transformation, exemplars of bold and brave leadership in system change, the impact of health policy on system transformations, and sustainability.

Finally, the IHI Forum has increasingly emphasized the power of connecting people, offering opportunities to build relationships that can lead to collaboration and innovation beyond the event. In doing so, we seek to mobilize, accelerate, and spread system transformation to achieve IHI’s vision of improving health and health care in partnerships with the global improvement community.

ROH: What are the core areas of focus for this year’s event?

JD: New to this year’s IHI Forum program is a track designed with and for today’s senior quality leaders – a Chief Quality Officer track – together with programming that emphasizes the impact of innovation and the cost of care in today’s systems (Digital Today, Digital Tomorrow and Let’s Talk About Money). The additional Forum tracks include Equity, Building Improvement Capability, Improvement Science and Methods, Leadership, Patient and Workforce Safety, Population Health, and Workforce Well-Being.

ROH: How do those areas overlap with the challenges health care professionals are facing today?

JD: The topics in this year’s IHI Forum program are directly aligned with today’s pressing health care challenges. The introduction of a Chief Quality Officer (CQO) track addresses the increasing demand for senior leaders to guide organizations through complex quality and safety challenges while building community for the individuals leading these crucial efforts. Innovation and cost of care reflect the growing need for health care providers and leaders across all disciplines to embrace digital transformation and develop solutions to mitigate the overwhelming financial pressures on both patients and health care systems.

Other key tracks, such as Equity and Workforce Well-Being, tackle critical issues including addressing disparities in care experiences and outcomes, and supporting health care workers facing burnout, stress, and injury. Tracks on Building Improvement Capability and Improvement Science and Methods are essential to improvement, while the Leadership and Patient and Workforce Safety tracks emphasize the importance of strong leadership in ensuring safe, accessible care. Finally, the focus on Population Health underscores innovation across the care continuum and addresses the complexity in today’s systems in managing the health of our communities.

ROH: How can these learnings equip attendees with the tools to advance and sustain improvement?

JD: The IHI Forum fosters networking and collaboration across people, organizations, and practice communities, creating opportunities for personal connections and sustained partnerships. Many attendees tell us that the IHI Forum provides an annual dose of hope, optimism, and connections to carry them into the year ahead. The Forum cultivates a spirit of continuous learning, curiosity, and courage essential for navigating today’s evolving health care landscape.

About Jill Duncan

Jill Duncan, RN, MS, MPH, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), oversees IHI’s portfolio of strategic networks. She leads IHI’s US-based Leadership Alliance and is accountable to the success of global teams in catalyzing and accelerating improvement knowledge exchange through robust relationship-based networks across IHI communities. Ms. Duncan is an active partner, facilitator, and advisor to large-scale efforts focused on leadership, workforce well-being, clinical quality improvement, and the development of dynamic learning networks. Her previous IHI responsibilities include daily operations and strategic planning for the IHI Open School, leadership for a number of results-oriented initiatives, and the design and development of workforce development programming. Ms. Duncan draws from her learning as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, quality leader, nurse educator, and frontline care provider. She received her undergraduate nursing degree from Georgetown University and her Master of Science and Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois Chicago.