Experiences with continuous quality improvement work based on the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model

Sustainability is an important issue in implementation processes in health care, and more knowledge is needed to facilitate improvement work in occupational therapy practice.

The aim of this study was to explore how occupational therapists experienced continuous quality improvement work based on the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model after 17 years.

Two focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 12 occupational therapists. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

The analysis resulted in three themes with related subthemes describing the occupational therapists' experiences of their model-based long-term improvement work. The themes were labelled as follows: 'sharing a safe and well-known professional reasoning', 'reaching normality and empowerment' and 'questioning and reshaping the too safe and too well-known normality'. The model functioned as a sustainable framework both for ordinary clinical practice and for continuous improvement work.

By using the model, the occupational therapists had established a safe and well-known professional reasoning in which continual quality improvement work had become sustainable.