Health Care Quality and Safety in a Correctional System: Creating Goals and Performance Measures for Improvement

This article summarizes a collaboration between the Illinois Department of Corrections and an academic partner, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing (UIC Nursing), to deliver a quality improvement (QI) and patient safety plan to the state. Included is a description of the need for meaningful data-driven QI as a method to deliver health care to the incarcerated population. An overview of the assessment, gap analysis, and collaboration between partners to develop a mission, vision, and performance dashboard with a beginning set of measures is presented. The dashboard with performance measures was developed to highlight the priorities of the organization and to focus improvement work to meet those goals. Next step recommendations for UIC Nursing to consult on implementation priorities and training are described.