Community Health Sciences graduate student Erica Bridge is in Orlando, Florida, this week attending the 25th annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care.

The event, held by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), brings together nearly 6,000 health care professionals from around the world.

“At the IHI conference I have the opportunity to interact with world-class health-care professionals and scholars, who have incredible knowledge and expertise related to quality improvement that will help to inform my research moving forward,” says Bridge.

Bridge is there as the winner of a $2,500-scholarship from the Canadian Network of IHI Chapters, one of two Canadian students to have received the award.

Bridge is part of the Interprofessional Education for Quality Improvement Program (I-EQUIP), an initiative offered by Brock and McMaster Universities in which students work at sites within the Niagara health system, giving students the chance to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom.

“I will be bringing key skills and learnings from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement conference back to Canada to help mentor the I-EQUIP projects that are currently underway, as well as, incorporating the newly acquired skills and knowledge into my theoretical framework, and thesis research,” says Bridge.

Topics at the conference include: managing change at the front line; the role of leaders in building cultures of quality improvement; and how students can help contribute to quality improvement change in the health care system.

The conference runs from Dec. 8 to 11, 2013.