Quality Health Care
- 7 June 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in JAMA
- Vol. 273 (21), 1718-1720
- https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03520450088046
Abstract
Health professionals are reporting progress in the application of improvement principles and methods to clinical care. One year ago we wrote, "Continuous improvement is a reality in clinical medicine.... Examples of improvement in direct patient care finally have emerged in the literature."1The pace is increasing. A recent MEDLINE search of the entries "total quality management" combined with "clinical" from 1985 to 1994 revealed 125 English-language citations, with 91 written from 1991 through 1994. A similar search of the entries "continuous quality improvement" combined with "clinical" uncovered 82 articles, all but 15 published after 1991. The most successful efforts combine professional knowledge (such as pathogenesis and therapeutics) with "knowledge for improvement," as described by Batalden and Nolan2and elaborated on by Batalden and Stoltz.3Knowledge for improvement incorporates an understanding of systems, statistical variation, the psychology of work and change, and the scientific method. We will focusKeywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- Quality Improvement in Health Care: The Year Behind, The Year AheadThe Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement, 1995
- Reduction of unnecessary intravenous catheter use. Internal medicine house staff participate in a successful quality improvement projectArchives of Internal Medicine, 1994
- Continuously Improving Primary CareThe Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement, 1994
- A Framework for the Continual Improvement of Health Care: Building and Applying Professional and Improvement Knowledge to Test Changes in Daily WorkThe Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement, 1993
- Quality improvement techniques: value to improve the timeliness of preoperative chest radiographic reports.American Journal of Roentgenology, 1993
- Pneumonia Mortality Reduction and Quality Improvement in a Community HospitalQRB - Quality Review Bulletin, 1993