All in

In the face of ever-accelerating rates of health reform, the ability to quickly learn and adapt is an increasingly essential survival skill. Collaborative learning, as this book illustrates, is a powerful method to rapidly spread knowledge. Yet knowledge comes in two flavors - "knowledge that" and "knowledge how." Knowing that a bicycle has two wheels, a seat, handlebars and a foot-pedal crank, for example, stands in sharp contrast to the practical knowledge of how to ride a bike.

This book assembles the world's leading experts around healthcare collaborative learning, where "all teach, all learn" to massively accelerate learning and effective change. They share both the theory (knowledge that) and principles of practical application (knowledge how). Their complementary viewpoints and varied practical examples illuminate the central issues and core principles from every angle. That's what makes it possible to apply these methods to the unique circumstances of any actual healthcare organization.

- Brent James, M.D., MStat, Chief Quality Officer, Intermountain Health Care

If you're working to improve healthcare, address patient safety, strengthen quality, streamline operations or enhance quality improvement, this book will benefit you. It includes insights from more than 35 authors with deep, pragmatic experience sharing how to design, run and fund successful healthcare learning collaboratives. It covers a broad array of topics starting with accelerating change at scale and ending with predictions on the future of collaboratives. Practical topics explored in this collection include recruitment, budgeting, data and measurement, patient activation and leadership. You'll find collaboration is an effective way to reduce the cycle time for improvement, with colleagues and, in some cases, even competitors.

The surprising part of shared learning with collaboratives is often the personal and professional joy that accompanies making care better. In the end, patients and families are the big winners and new stakeholders in the success of collaboratives. Collaborating is superior to going it alone. Why would you want to learn any other way?