How can we recognize continuous quality improvement?

How can we recognize continuous quality improvement?

OBJECTIVE Continuous quality improvement (CQI) methods are foundational approaches to improving healthcare delivery. Publications using the term CQI, however, are methodologically heterogeneous, and labels other than CQI are used to signify relevant approaches. Standards for identifying the use of CQI based on its key methodological features could enable more effective learning across quality i...

Can we take continuous quality improvement to the next level?

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ National Cardiac Database (NCD), which is housed and managed at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, has set the standard for effective professional society–sponsored clinical registries. Nearly 90% of US hospitals performing cardiac surgery participate in the NCD. In addition to accruing mortality and morbidity outcomes information from 3.6 million cardiac su...

Sugarcane improvement: how far can we go?

In recent years, efforts to improve sugarcane have focused on the development of biotechnology for this crop. It has become clear that sugarcane lacks tools for the biotechnological route of improvement and that the initial efforts in sequencing ESTs had limited impact for breeding. Until recently, the models used by breeders in statistical genetics approaches have been developed for diploid or...

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Nationwide quality improvement--how are we doing and what can we do?

Editorial Nationwide quality improvement—how are we doing and what can we do? Quality improvement frameworks and methods have developed over the last 100 years. Ernest Codman developed his End Result System at the beginning of last century, suggesting that all patients should have their outcomes evaluated at discharge and one year after [1]. In the 1920s, Flexner evolved his Hospital Standardiz...