ABSTRACT
Recent reforms in health care, the rise of consumerism, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have created strong external incentives to improve quality of care. Reimbursement reform, investment in infrastructure, and advances in health care decision-making technologies are driving health care to become more efficient, effective, and value driven. During this innovative time in health care, leaders have both the opportunity and imperative to improve care delivery and organizational efficiency in pursuit of providing high-value, patient-centered care.
This chapter provides an overview of the systems and processes that comprise the framework for health care quality improvement initiatives and identifies the core commonalities across those systems and tools. Although this chapter does not include an exhaustive list of performance improvement systems and tools, the most commonly used frameworks are emphasized in order to provide the clinical leader with a basic understanding of how to implement performance improvement activities within health care facilities.
