Quality improvement (QI) offers a route to transforming care delivery at the scale and pace needed to ensure sustainability in the National Health Service. However, it is a complex endeavour with numerous challenges to consider, and it takes time. There are many ways of understanding quality and QI in healthcare, and it is important for doctors to develop knowledge of the core principles of QI, which increasingly feature in clinical settings and in training curricula for healthcare professionals.
Learning Objectives• Describe what QI means in healthcare contexts and explain how it is different from clinical audit
• Identify when QI methodology can add value to efforts to improve quality in clinical settings
• Describe contextual factors that influence the effectiveness with which QI can be applied