Practice policy and quality initiatives quality improvement and confirmation projects: facilitating rapid, measurable performance improvement

Abstract

As radiology departments continue to increase in size and complexity, the process of improving and maintaining excellent performance is becoming increasingly challenging. In response, a systematic process for efficiently implementing and sustaining measurable improvement in our radiology department has been developed, which targets focused aspects of individual performance that contribute to overall departmental quality. Projects designed to achieve such improvements have been called quality improvement and confirmation (QuIC) projects. The QuIC project process involves a project champion, medical expert, technical expert, quality improvement technologist specialist, and appropriate leaders, managers, and support personnel. The project champion conducts a preliminary investigation and organizes team members, who define the desired performance through consensus, establish data collection and analysis procedures, and prepare to launch the project. Once launched, the QuIC project process follows an execution period that is divided into four phases: (a) project launch phase, (b) support phase, (c) transition phase, and (d) maintenance phase. The first three phases focus on education, group-level feedback, and individual feedback, respectively. Weekly audits are performed to track performance improvement. Data collection, analysis, and dissemination processes are automated to the extent possible. To date, four such projects have been successfully conducted. The QuIC project concept is an attempt to apply the principles of process improvement to the process of process improvement by enabling any member of a radiology department to efficiently and reliably spearhead a quality improvement project. We consider this to be a work in progress and continue to refine the process with the goal of eventually being able to conduct many projects simultaneously.