What is "quality improvement" and how can it transform healthcare?

Enhanced recovery pathway for elective caesarean section

“…We aimed to identify current practice through an online survey of UK maternity units, and to reach consensus on an ER clinical pathway, with inbuilt Quality Improvement (QI) components 6 , for elective CS via an expert consensus workshop using the Nominal Group reported plans to introduce one. Ten units (33%) reported that between 20-50% of their patients go home the next day after elective CS.…”

Health care improvement and continuing interprofessional education: Continuing interprofessional development to improve patient outcomes

“…Recognition of this mutual interdependence is crucial since the performance of even the most knowledgeable and skilful staff will be limited if the processes within which they work together are flawed. 2,5,[10][11] Traditionally the individual has been viewed as the source of quality and safety and hence the focus of training to prevent and solve problems. 12 Most healthcare professionals lack the knowledge and skills to play an effective role in service improvement [13][14] and may see acquiring these skills as time spent on "organisational issues" not necessary to their work 12 although they are important competencies for a wide range of staff.…”

“…10,[19][20] Attempts to reconcile these tensions include an early seminal paper describing a framework for combining professional knowledge with improvement knowledge 21 and more recently a model emphasising the need to seamlessly link the improvement of outcomes, the improvement of systems and the improvement of professional development. 2 …”

“…1 The ideal conditions for achieving this are when everyone working in healthcare recognises they have two jobs when they come to work everyday; "to do their work and to improve it". 2 This fundamental aim provides the context for this paper which explores the relationship between healthcare improvement and continuing interprofessional education, or more particularly continuing interprofessional development (CIPD) which the authors use as a term to include interprofessional education and interprofessional learning since these terms are not necessarily synonymous.…”

The Dynamics of Physicians’ Learning and Support of Others’ Learning

“…Researchers have maintained that learning and knowledge development are essential for achieving continual quality improvements of practice and for linking theory with action (Batalden & Stoltz, 1993). In addition, researchers have argued that outcomes of care, the competence of professionals, and the organization of healthcare systems are interdependent of efforts to improve healthcare (Batalden & Davidoff, 2007;Headrick et al, 2011). Based on their study of five improvement programs in the United Kingdom, Dixon-Woods, McNicol, and Martin (2012) have concluded that "more explicit acknowledgement of the complexity of the challenges facing those improving quality may help to avert disappointments, maximise learning and accelerate future progress.…”