Quality Improvement
What does quality improvement mean in healthcare?
Quality improvement is a systematic, continuous process that evaluates current healthcare practices and looks for ways to improve them. QI aims to provide higher-quality care while reducing errors, waste, and costs.
To do this, QI teams use various tools and techniques, such as process mapping and root cause analysis. QI initiatives often focus on standardizing healthcare processes, such as ordering medications or documenting patient histories.
By standardizing these processes, healthcare providers can reduce variation in care, leading to better patient outcomes.
Why is quality improvement important to healthcare?
Quality improvement seeks to improve healthcare delivery. Its goal is to ensure that patients receive the best possible care by identifying and addressing areas where errors are more likely to occur.
QI teams in healthcare use standardized processes to identify these high-risk areas and then implement targeted interventions to improve safety and quality to improve patient outcomes and quality metrics. As healthcare organizations continue to seek ways to provide the best possible care, QI will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of care.