Twelve tips for translating continuous quality improvement (CQI) into scholarship

Continuous quality improvement (CQI) has become an expectation of accreditors across health professions education. As institutions expand their CQI infrastructure, many professionals find themselves generating rich data and insights but lacking guidance on how to approach this work with a scholarly lens. This article offers twelve tips, grounded in Glassick's standards for scholarship, to help medical education leaders and accreditation professionals embed scholarly thinking into CQI activities from the start. The tips address foundational elements such as defining outcomes early, organizing a structured CQI portfolio, clarifying ethical boundaries, leveraging existing data, collaborating across disciplines and institutions, aligning dissemination with project maturity, and iterating over time. Together, these strategies support practitioners in designing CQI work that is both operationally impactful and poised for dissemination. By integrating scholarly principles into daily improvement efforts, institutions can strengthen local decision-making while contributing to a shared body of knowledge that advances the quality and effectiveness of medical and health professions education.