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Identifying continuous quality improvement publications: what makes an improvement intervention 'CQI'?
Sean M O'Neill1, Susanne Hempel, Yee-Wei Lim
1RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, USA. soneill@fsm.northwestern.edu
BMJ Quality & Safety
|July 6, 2011
Summary
Defining continuous quality improvement (CQI) is crucial for reliable evidence reviews. This study identified key CQI features, finding that few quality improvement interventions fully meet the definition, highlighting a need for consensus.
Area of Science:
- Healthcare research
- Quality improvement science
Background:
- The definition of continuous quality improvement (CQI) lacks consensus, impacting the reliability of evidence reviews.
- Accurate article selection in evidence reviews depends on clear, standardized definitions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify key definitional features of continuous quality improvement (CQI).
- To develop and test a screening instrument for reliably identifying CQI articles.
Main Methods:
- Expert panel methods were used to identify CQI features.
- A six-item screening tool was applied to 106 quality improvement intervention (QII) articles.
- Two raters assessed inter-rater reliability using percent agreement and intra-class correlation.
Main Results:
- Inter-rater reliability for CQI features ranged from 55.7% to 75.5% agreement.
- 'Feedback of systematically collected data' was the most frequent feature (64%).
- Only 14.2% of QII articles exhibited all six identified CQI features.
Conclusions:
- CQI features can be reliably extracted from quality improvement intervention (QII) articles.
- A small proportion of QII articles encompass all core CQI features.
- Further consensus development is necessary for standardized scientific communication regarding CQI.
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