Investment in quality improvement: how to maximize the return

Today, one of the most pressing concerns of health-care policymakers in industrialized countries are deficits in the quality of health care. This paper presents a decision program that addresses the question in which disease areas and at what intensity to invest in quality improvement (QI) in order to maximize population health. The decision program considers both a budget constraint as well as time constraints of educators and health professionals to participate in educational activities. The calculations of the model are based on a single assumption which is that more intense quality efforts lead to larger QIs, but with diminishing returns. This assumption has been validated by previous studies. All other relationships described by the model are deduced from this assumption. The model uses data from QI trials published in the literature. Thus, it is able to assess how the vast number of published QI strategies compare in terms of their value.