Interactions of Quality Improvement with other Approaches in Healthcare

Abstract

Introduction to Quality Improvement in Healthcare: Quality improvement (QI) is an approach to the continuous study and improvement of the processes of providing health care services to meet the needs of the patient and others. It uses a variety of methods such as facilitation, formal or informal teams, benchmarks, and audits with feedback, coupled with more quantitative methods such as attribute and control charts, statistical process control, and structured experiments or designs to explore and possibly reduce variation, i.e., to define and address any changes. Based on the industrial engineering paradigm, QI focuses on systems, structures, and processes, and the latter determine to a great extent the desirable as well as undesirable outcomes.