“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
~ Maya Angelou
At the Institute for High Quality Care (IHQC), we believe in the linkages between equity, social justice and health. We seek to invest time, to listen, and to support improvements where we can.
We believe in addressing the social determinants of health – so that we can better understand the upstream, the root causes, and make positive changes. However, we consistently observe the repeated affronts to equity, social justice, and health. We witness communities of color experiencing the dual traumas of brutality and the COVID-19 pandemic.
We will not accept the status quo – to do so goes against the very heart of our work.
We believe in the power of holistic improvement thinking, in the need for self-reflection and assessment. It’s only through truly embracing the core tenets of improvement that we as a society can rise – that we can ultimately invoke and sustain meaningful change.
As an organization committed to improvement, we focus on how we can support our partners – health care delivery systems, clinics, community-based organizations, providers, staff, executives, leaders, member organizations, funders and foundations – to become agents for change, to be inherent problem solvers. We value the power of change and problem solving – and strive to foster, share, curate and spread promising practices for improvement.
“When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.”
~Anthony J. D’Angelo
The improvement tenets we believe in:
- Understand the root causes of the problem – before assuming you know the solution;
- Use empathy to inform solution design, to consciously work to understand, be aware of, and sensitive to other’s experiences;
- Seek and engage input from all those impacted by the problem to help clarify it and to identify solutions;
- Test, test, test – push forward with changes to find what works, what is promising, and what will stick;
- Failures happen – use them as lessons for improvement;
- Change is a balance of head and heart; and
- Change takes time.