The origins of the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare lie in a small misunderstanding.
We had invited Don Berwick to the launch of the journal Quality and Safety in Healthcare (now BMJ Quality & Safety ), and we were, of course, impressed by him and what he had to say. Some time later, I heard on the radio about an American professional body that held a major meeting in London at regular intervals. Knowing that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) ran a successful forum, I contacted Don to ask whether their forum might be held in London one year. He thought I meant starting a new forum, and I thought, why not. Richard’s idea was simply to move the IHI Forum to London for one year to broaden its reach. We quickly found ourselves on the same page and welcomed an ongoing, annual international forum together, moving year after year from one European city to another. We never looked back. “A rolling stone that gathers moss,” Richard called it. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Richard Smith CBE Former editor The BMJ , 1991–2004
Donald M. Berwick KBE President emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Powered by FlippingBook