Reforming Care for Persons Near the End of Life: The Promise of Quality Improvement
- 16 July 2002
- journal article
- Published by American College of Physicians in Annals of Internal Medicine
- Vol. 137 (2), 117-122
- https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-137-2-200207160-00010
Abstract
Most people in developed countries will live with a serious, eventually fatal, chronic condition for months or years before dying; yet, the delivery of health care services has only just recently begun adapting to this reality. Quality improvement methods have been effective in helping clinical services to make substantial changes quickly. Quality improvement requires stating an aim, measuring success, and testing possible improvements. The testing of changes requires a clinical team to Plan, Do, Study, and Act on new insights (the “PDSA cycle“). Repeated PDSA cycles generate deep understanding of complex systems and make sustainable improvements rapidly. This paper discusses a composite case study in a nursing home setting, which builds on experience with multisite collaborative efforts and introduces quality improvement methods in the context of end-of-life care. *For members of the End-of-Life Care Consensus Panel, see the Appendix.Keywords
This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- Families' Perception of the Added Value of Hospice in the Nursing HomeJournal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2000
- Quality Improvements in End of Life Care: Insights from Two CollaborativesThe Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement, 2000
- Heart failure disease management: a critical reviewJournal of Cardiac Failure, 1999
- Developing and Testing Changes in Delivery of CareAnnals of Internal Medicine, 1998
- Death and End-of-Life Planning in One Midwestern CommunityArchives of Internal Medicine, 1998