Assessing Quality Improvement in Health Care
Gaps in the role of theory to enhance the practice of QI research are explored in this research.
The U.S. health system has pervasive deficits in quality including disparities by race, ethnicity, and income. Yet, the overarching aims, as articulated by Donald Berwick and colleagues and adopted by the federal government, are better care, better health, and lower cost. To do that for child health care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have established Seven Centers of Excellence and two state Medicaid programs as part of the Pediatric Quality Measures Program.
The article identifies gaps in the current theory and practice of quality improvement (QI) research, suggests approaches for closing those gaps, and how to build a theory of applied QI to help generalize findings from evaluations and help the nation meet its articulated goals.
“Quality and QI research require the collaboration of excellent listeners, sophisticated methodologists, and conceptual and analytic thinkers, all coming together with open minds that are informed but not bound by theory,” the authors write.
Moving the Discourse on Quality in Pediatrics
- 1. Well-Child Care Clinical Practice Redesign for Young Children
- 2. Reducing Quality of Care Disparities in Childhood Asthma
- 3. National Quality Measures for Child Mental Health Care
- 4. Do Parent Perceptions Predict Continuity of Publicly Funded Care for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder?
- 5. Systematic Update of Computerized Physician Order Entry Order Sets to Improve Quality of Care
- 6. Methods of Mortality Risk Adjustment in the NICU
- 7. Accuracy of Hospital Administrative Data in Reporting Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections in Newborns
- 8. Variation in Surgical Outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- 9. The Factors Associated with High-Quality Communication for Critically Ill Children
- 10. Rapid Adoption of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG for Acute Gastroenteritis
- 11. Management of Bronchiolitis in the Emergency Department
- 12. Assessing Quality Improvement in Health Care