In-depth series – Quality Improvement

| February 1, 2017 | Print Article

Throughout the year we will explore quality improvement as our in-depth topic.  Join us on a mini-tour of tools, resources and ways to incorporate quality improvement models in everyday GME.  Our first installment, of six, is to learn what quality improvement is.

Quality improvement, at its foundation, is the analysis of and systematic efforts to improve performance.  Approaches used vary; however there are established models that we can use to assist us in our analysis and review.  We’ll look at a few of the major models in the next few installments.

Quality improvement is not only applicable to the medical field, but to other fields as well.  Some examples include:

  1. Medical – reducing medical errors and improving patient outcomes
  2. Industrial– reducing product failures
  3. Administration – reducing inefficiencies in work processes