Topic last updated Jan. 2006
Note |
Partners
might include:
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Managed
Care Organizations |
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Quality
Improvement Organizations |
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Managed
Care Organizations |
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Health
Care Purchasers |
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State
Health Department |
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Medical
Societiest |
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Industry
Groups |
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Industry
Chains |
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Community
Groups with a stake in Quality Improvement |
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How
to Make Systems Changes
for Improved Care
Changes
at Various Levels
In addition to efforts to improve patients and/or provider outcomes,
change can be brought about at the community level, with groups
of providers, or with individual providers.
Community
Changes: Community campaigns and partnerships
involve organizations in coordinated activities to share knowledge
about desired practices and to carry out improvement work. The
partners could line up intellectual and perhaps financial resources
to address a common topic of interest, and agree to execute a single,
unified set of activities to address that topic. For example, they
might agree to develop infrastructure to nurture health-promoting
behavior and community initiatives on active lifestyles. For more
information on developing community partnerships, click
here.
Group
Changes: Groups of interested medical providers or organizations
may agree to conduct quality improvement projects. Leaders will
need to organize the effort and seek expertise as needed about conducting
a project. Instruction might be needed on training in the use of
self-measurement tools, best practices, process change tools, and
rapid cycle improvement. The groups could join a functioning collaborative
in which members work on similar processes (e.g. increasing rates
of eye, feet, and kidney examinations for persons with diabetes)
and share their experience with the other members of the collaborative
to accelerate the rate of improvement.
Collaborative
improvement is based on the following premises:12
1.
A substantial gap exists between knowledge and practice in diabetes
care.
2. Broad variation is pervasive in clinical practice.
3. Examples of improved practices and outcomes exist, but they
need to be described and disseminated to other potential users.
4. Collaboration between professionals working toward clear aims
enables improvement.
5. Health care outcomes are the result of processes rather than
individual efforts.
6. Understanding the methods of rapid cycle improvement can accelerate
demonstrable improvement.
Individual
Changes: Individual practices or healthcare organizations may
choose to work on their own improvement projects. As in the group
model, training in self-measurement tools, best practices, process
change tools, and rapid cycle improvement is needed for the success
of these projects. Support for these activities may be available
through local Quality Improvement Organizations, internal quality
improvement professionals or purchasers of health care plans.
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How: Successful Quality Improvement Projects |
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