Quality Improvement Tools Could Increase Public Health Emergency Preparedness
The nation's preparedness to respond to a large-scale public health emergency, such as an influenza pandemic, is inadequate, but it could be improved by using the same quality improvement (QI) techniques commonly used in the health care delivery sector, researchers report in an article published today on the Health Affairs Web site.
Originally developed in manufacturing, QI represents "a systematic approach to understanding and measuring performance, identifying solutions to performance shortfalls, and implementing changes to improve outcomes." In the article, researchers from RAND and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center describe the successful use of a pilot QI learning collaborative, involving five state and local health departments, designed to improve readiness for an influenza pandemic.
You can read the article by Debra Lotstein of RAND and colleagues at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.27.5.w328
Health Affairs is pleased to make this article freely accessible to listserv members for two weeks.
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Kathleen Ford
mailto:KFord@projecthope.org