Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement “QA/QI” projects & the ICTS JIT Program
JIT-specific: Did you know that the ICTS Just-In-Time (JIT) Core Usage Funding Program can be used to obtain data that will lead to a concrete improvement in patient care (Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement “QA/QI” projects) at Barnes-Jewish Hospital or St. Louis Children’s Hospital? Within your project application, you will need to identify the potentially improved tools/processes in order for your proposal to be eligible. We encourage applicants seeking quick access to funding for advancing medical knowledge to improve human health to review our program website for more information.
WashU Definition of QA/QI
- Quality Assurance is defined as a program for the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met.
- Quality Improvement is a formal approach to the analysis of performance and systematic efforts to improve it.
Differences between QA/QI and Research 3
| Points to consider | Research | QA/QI |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | To test a hypothesis OR establish clinical practice standards where none are accepted | To continuously assess or promptly improve a process, program, or system; OR improve performance as judged by accepted/established standards |
| Starting Point | To answer a new question or test a hypothesis | To improve performance or patient care |
| Benefits | Designed to contribute to generalizable knowledge and may or may not benefit subjects | Designed to promptly benefit a process, program, or system and may or may not benefit patients |
| Risks/Burdens | May place subjects at risk and stated as such | By design, does not increase patient’s risk, with exception of possible privacy/confidentiality concerns |
| Data Collection | Systematic data collection | Systematic data collection |
| End Point | Answer a research question | Promptly improve a program/process/system |
| Testing/Analysis | Statistically prove or disprove a hypothesis | Compare a program/process/system to an established set of standards |
| Participant Obligation | No obligation of individuals to participate | Responsibility to participate as component of care |
| Effect on program or practice | Findings are generally not expected to immediately affect or change practice | Findings are expected to directly and immediately affect institutional practice |
Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement (QA/QI) FAQs
QA and QI consist of systematic, data-guided activities to bring about prompt positive changes in the delivery of health care and involve deliberate actions to improve care, typically at the institutional level. Introducing QA/QI methods often means encouraging people in the clinical care setting to use their daily experience to identify ways to improve care, implement changes on a small scale, collect data on the effects of those changes, and assess the results.4
References
- Carillion Clinic Institutional Review Board, Application to Determine if Project is Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement, August 2012, Roanoke VA.
- Stanford University HRPP, Quality Assessment and Quality Improvement (QA/QI) FAQs (pdf)
- Distinction: Human Subject Research – vs. – Quality Improvement, OASD(HA)/TMA, HRPP at Tricare, Human Research Protection Program, Falls Church, VA.
- Baily, MA, The Ethics of Using QI Methods to Improve Health Care Quality and Safety, A Hastings Center Special Report, July-August 2006, p. S5.