Academy for Healthcare Improvement

	Submit an Abstract
Academy for Healthcare Improvement
2008 Request for Abstracts
for presentation at the
Fourteenth Annual International Scientific Symposium on Improving the Quality and Value of Health Care
Meeting Date: December 9, 2008
Location: Nashville, Tennessee - USA
Abstracts due: September 5, 2008

International Scientific Symposium

The goals of the Scientific Symposium are

• To encourage, accelerate, and improve the science of continuous improvement in health care and health professions education.
• To provide a forum in which investigators from around the world can introduce new work for peer review and discussion on the science of improving healthcare and health professions education.

State-of-the-art work in health services delivery and health professions education will be highlighted in rapid-fire presentations. Papers are competitively selected through peer-review. For each, a ten-minute presentation will be followed by ten minutes of discussion, moderated by international health care leaders. Additional highly rated papers will be invited for poster presentations. Previous Symposia have featured work in geriatric team care, reduced antibiotic prescribing, diabetes care, electronic reporting and patient safety, errors in medication/prescribing, access and quality, urgent care outcomes, reducing prescription costs for indigent patients, crew training, and system improvement.

The abstracts presented each year since 1998 are available at http://a4hi.org

The National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care

The Academy for Healthcare Improvement is pleased to sponsor the Scientific Symposium in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as part of the National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care. The National Forum is a premier conference on improvement in health care, attracting thousands of health care professionals from around the world. Through workshops, plenary sessions and special interest meetings, the National Forum will showcase leading edge theory from improvement experts as well as real-life case studies of successful improvement efforts in health care organizations.

The 20th Annual National Forum will be held December 10-11 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The 14th Annual International Scientific Symposium will be held on Tuesday, December 9, as part of the Forum.

To Submit an Abstract for the International Scientific Symposium

Abstracts will be considered in two general topic areas: health services delivery and health professions education. Top-rated abstracts will be selected for oral presentation. Additional highly rated abstracts will be selected for poster-only presentation. Please indicate whether you will be available to present should your abstract be selected for poster-only presentation.

The abstract must be submitted in a single Microsoft Word document of no more than 500 words (excluding contact information and graphs). The single Word file must include all charts and graphs, and conform to the following outline:

(1) Background
(2) Purpose of the Study
(3) Methods
(4) Results
(5) Conclusions and Implications

Presenters whose papers are selected for poster presentation are responsible for producing posters for display in the midday poster session.

Other Information to Include

In the abstract, include all of the authors' names and the name and city of the institution in which the work was conducted, if applicable. Underline the name of the author who will present the abstract. Also include the key contact person and the e-mail address for that person, along with their phone and FAX numbers. Indicate which of the two general topic areas (health services delivery or health professions education) your abstract represents.

E-mail your Word Document as an attachment to: RentfroA@health.missouri.edu

(The receipt of all abstracts will be acknowledged within 5 days. Please advise if the acknowledgement is not received.)

Symposium Selection Process

Abstracts will be chosen through blinded peer review by an international panel on the basis of originality and scientific excellence. Preference will be given to studies that advance the field of quality improvement science and application in health care and health professions education. Studies should be completed, with data summarized in the abstract. Authors are encouraged to present data in the form of control charts. These and other graphical displays will not be counted in the 500-word limit. Authors should consider using the Davidoff-Batalden guidelines for publication of quality improvement research (http://qshc.bmj.com/misc/guidelines.dtl).

Presenter Fees and Responsibilities

Authors will be informed of abstract selection decisions in early October 2008.

The submission of an abstract will be considered as an agreement to present if the abstract is selected.

Presenting authors must register for the Scientific Symposium but will pay a reduced registration fee of $100 (this does not include co-authors). They will be responsible for their travel expenses. Registration fees for the Scientific Symposium do not include registration fees for the National Forum and general conference.

Authors may be asked to edit their abstracts prior to inclusion in the Symposium Proceedings.

Abstracts selected for presentation and the email address of the primary author will be posted on our web site, http://a4hi.org under the Scientific Symposium banner, unless the authors request otherwise.

For More Information

For further information regarding abstract selection and presentation, please contact the Scientific Symposium conference office at the University of Missouri, School of Medicine, Columbia, MO 65212 (email: RentfroA@health.missouri.edu); conference co-chair Linda Headrick, M.D., M.S. (email: HeadrickL@health.missouri.edu).

For information regarding the National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care, including conference registration, see the web site: http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/ConferencesAndSeminars/19thNationalForumonQualityImprovement.htm or contact the Institute for Healthcare Improvement at (617) 301-4800, or toll-free at (866) 787-0831.