IHI Forum Unites Health Care Professionals to Advance Healthy Aging, Equity, and Innovation

Global Gathering Marks 37 Years of Driving Quality and Safety in Health Care

ANAHEIM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 2025 IHI Forum convened this morning with poignant and powerful opening remarks from Sylvia Trent-Adams, PhD, RN – her first as President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). In a fireside conversation with IHI President Emerita and Senior Fellow Maureen Bisognano, Dr. Trent-Adams urged the audience of 2,400 health care professionals to lean into “intentional collaboration” amid times of rapid change and to empower people and communities to shape solutions to the challenges they face.

“Navigating the future will demand intentional collaboration – leaders working deliberately across roles, departments, and systems to share power, strengthen capability, and solve problems close to the work,” said Dr. Trent-Adams. She reflected on lessons learned during her distinguished career in public service, sharing personal stories that reinforced her belief in the power of community-owned solutions.

Drawing on decades of experience at the front lines of care and leadership, Dr. Trent-Adams and Bisognano – both veteran health care providers and executives – explored what it means to lead improvement when systems are strained, communities are calling for change, and traditional approaches no longer suffice. Their conversation highlighted the enduring values that anchor IHI’s work, and the role the organization can play to equip people, create the right connections, and support teams to turn collaborative intent into real, sustained improvement.

Now in its 37th year, the IHI Forum brings together health care leaders, clinicians, patient advocates, and quality improvement professionals from around the world. The 2025 event features 190 sessions, 450 presenters, and more than 550 poster presentations showcasing real-world improvement projects. Keynote sessions remain a hallmark, inspiring fresh ideas and action to advance better care worldwide. From proven methods to emerging ideas, the Forum equips attendees with the tools and inspiration they need to lead change and advance better care in their communities.

Aging & Age-Friendly Care
IHI has deep expertise in improving care for older adults, most notably through the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative – which now includes more than 5,500 sites recognized by IHI for providing the 4Ms of age-friendly care to 5.8 million older adults. Learnings from this impactful movement are featured prominently at Forum, and the new resources outlined below are now available to help provide evidence-based care to every older adult at every care interaction:

• Spreading Age-Friendly Care: Drivers of Successful Health System-wide Spread of the 4Ms: This guide describes the drivers of spread of the 4Ms through all sites and settings of care in a health system
• Age-Friendly Care System-wide Spread Plan: A tool to help teams articulate a vision for the spread of the 4Ms across the health system, and document action steps.
• Age-Friendly Care System-wide Spread Self-Assessment: A tool designed to help systems identify strengths and opportunities as they relate to the key drivers of spread.
• State-based Guide: This guide provides a practical framework for states and regions to scale the Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms Framework through four actionable levers built on a foundation of health equity.
• My Health Checklist: Already available for download in several languages, a new audio version is now available to help older adults and their care givers prepare for medical appointments and focus on what matters. New guidance materials for providers to support dissemination of My Health Checklist are also available.
• March 2026 Action Community: A free virtual learning opportunity to test and accelerate the adoption of the 4Ms with a network of teams from across different health systems.
• The Conversation Project offers numerous guides to help individuals have conversations about their wishes – or those of important people in their lives – for care through the end of life.

Numerous sessions at Forum will explore aging and age-friendly care, including:

• Building Community to Advance Research on Health System Adoption and Impact of Age-Friendly Care and the 4Ms Framework
• Fueling the Aging Revolution: From 4Ms Implementation to a Systemwide Aging Institute
• Age-Friendly Patient Empowerment – Case Examples from IHI and AARP Community of Practice
• Cinematic Conversation: Aging in America: Survive or Thrive – The Urgent Need for Age-Friendly Care

Health Equity
IHI’s commitment to health equity is unwavering, and a Forum track dedicated to this topic includes a range of opportunities for attendees to learn and collaborate to accelerate the elimination of inequities in health and health care access, treatment, and outcomes. Half- and full-day workshops, Spotlight Sessions, Cinematic Conversations, and Pecha Kucha Presentations are offered throughout the conference.

A recently released white paper from IHI, “Advancing Health Equity: An Approach to Systematically Identify and Evaluate Health Disparities,” will be explored during two sessions at the Forum. This freely available resource for health care organizations is quickly becoming one of IHI’s most downloaded white papers, demonstrating the need for a consistent method to identify, quantify, track, and report health equity gaps among patient populations.

Following are Forum sessions related to IHI’s new white paper, as well as other notable health equity programming:

• Turning Insight into Action: Standardizing How We Identify, Measure, and Address Health Disparities
• Couch Conversation: Building Alignment on Health Equity Measurement
• Spotlight Session: Leading for Equity
• Staying the Course: Discussions on Maintaining a Commitment to Health Equity

Innovation in Health Care
IHI is continuously innovating to meet the evolving needs of health care organizations amid a rapidly changing technology landscape. One such innovation is IHI’s Care Operating System (IHI CareOS), which represents a fundamental shift in how health systems approach transformation, not by adding new technology, but by creating an integrated operating environment that helps organizations maximize their existing investments while planning strategically for the future. This approach unifies clinical care, operations, informatics, and analytics to ensure that critical daily workflows actively support clinicians rather than burden them. The outcome is a workforce empowered to practice with clarity, connection, and purpose—restoring the joy and mission at the heart of health care. Attendees can learn more about IHI CareOS at the following sessions:

• Spotlight Session: Designing for System Resilience and Reliability to Enable and Empower the Clinical Workforce: A Day in the Life with a Care Operating System
• Coach Conversation: From Discovery to Design: What Region Jönköping is Learning through the Care Operating System Journey

The AI in Health Care track is one of the most popular among Forum attendees again this year, with sessions filling up as soon as they are announced. Highlights include:

• GenAI & QI...Together at Last
• One Size Won’t Fit All: Designing AI for Real-World Health Care
• AI for Health Care Improvement: Transformational or Toy?

Patient & Workforce Safety
With its unparalleled expertise in patient and workforce safety, IHI is rolling out new professional development offerings for health care professionals at various stages of their career. These courses complement IHI’s core safety and Open School programs, enabling students and professionals to develop competencies in the following clinical areas:

• Beyond HRO: Human-Centered Resilience Engineering as a Future-Ready Framework for Patient Safety – Understanding why traditional “High-Reliability Organization (HRO)” methods are no longer enough.
• Human Factors in Action – Improving system safety by learning how human behavior, environment, and workflow design impact errors and reliability.
• Leading Patient Safety: Essentials for Managers and Directors – Elevating leadership in patient and workforce safety with systems thinking, proactive strategies, and human-factors design.
• Preventing and Mitigating Workplace Violence in Health Care: Strategies for Leaders – Gaining practical, evidence-based strategies to prevent and respond to workplace violence in health care settings.

Safety is always a prevailing theme at IHI conferences, and this year’s Forum includes multiple tracks, sessions, and workshops addressing patient and workforce safety and well-being. Highlights include:

• Spotlight Session: Blueprint Reimagined: Leading the Next Era of Safety – Featuring a special tribute celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Lucian Leape
• Patient and Family Engagement a Journey, Not a Destination
• Caring for the Caregivers: A Just Approach to Workplace Violence Prevention
• On Dollars and “Sense”: Fostering Competency and Partnerships for the Business Case for Safety

Certifications for Health Care Professionals
For the first time, in-person review courses for all four of IHI’s professional certifications took place at the IHI Forum. Full-day workshops were held during the pre-conference program with attendees taking the first step toward earning credentials that will help them build and apply knowledge across diverse health care roles and disciplines.

IHI’s original certification program – the Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS^TM) – has surpassed the milestone of 8,000 individuals who have earned the credential. The Certified Professional in Human Factors in Health Care (CPHFH) credential was introduced this spring, enabling health care professionals to demonstrate a high level of proficiency in applying the core standards of human factors, systems thinking, and design to health care improvement. Starting in 2026, need-based scholarships for the CPPS and the CPHFH credentials will be named in honor of Lucian Leape, MD – the patient safety visionary and founding chairman of the IHI Lucian Leape Institute, who passed away earlier this year. The Certified Professional in Age-Friendly Health Care (CPAFH) and the Certified Professional in Clinical Health Equity (CPCHE) credentials were introduced this fall, and review courses began in September.

For those unable to attend the 2025 IHI Forum in person, a Virtual Pass provides on-demand access to all main stage events, including Keynotes, Spotlight Sessions, and more. Planning has already begun for the 2026 IHI Forum, which will take place December 6-9 in Phoenix, Arizona. Information about IHI’s global convenings can be found here.

About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a leading, globally recognized not-for-profit health care improvement organization that has been applying evidence-based quality improvement methods to meet current and future health care challenges for more than 30 years. IHI provides millions of people in health care with methods, tools, and resources to make care better, safer, and more equitable; convenes experts to enable knowledge sharing and peer-learning; and advises health systems and hospitals of all sizes in improving their systems and outcomes at scale. IHI’s mission is to innovate and lead transformational improvement in health and health care worldwide.