Quality Improvement
Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) is a core value of the Department of Medicine and the Internal Medicine Residency Program.
Our curriculum integrates CQI at all levels, preparing residents to critically assess hospital processes, identify system errors, and implement improvements that enhance patient safety. Interns enter the program with an IHI Basic Certificate and are further prepared to enhance their knowledge of quality improvement through lectures and hands-on quality improvement projects.
Interns & Residents
Interns
The making healthcare SAFER (MHCS) course
Course designed to decrease preventable medical errors, improve quality of healthcare, and promote teamwork in an inter-specialty, inter-professional manner during orientation.
- Learn best practices for infection prevention, quality, and teamwork in healthcare delivery
- Integrate asepsis into daily hospital activities and safety awareness. Interns participate in stations to address asepsis techniques and reinforcement of concepts of Handwashing repetition. They also participate in safety simulation to measure the participant's ability to identify patient safety concerns. Interns learn how to report and re-mediate these concerns by reporting on the Safety online system.
Making Central Lines SAFER course
- Initial knowledge based course.
- Simulated competency
- Residents who have successfully completed both courses may place central lines under direct supervision until deemed competent for procedure credentialing privileges.
Residents
- Residents engage in team-based, longitudinal quality improvement projects, which culminate in the Department of Medicine's QI Symposium. At this event, 17 posters are presented, showcasing the outcomes of these projects. Awards are given for Best Overall Project, Best Inpatient Project, Best Outpatient Project, and QI Champion, recognizing exceptional contributions to improving care quality.
- Additionally, residents participate in monthly Morbidity and Mortality conferences where they conduct root cause analyses to understand and address adverse outcomes. They also take part in hospital-wide root cause analyses, contributing to broader efforts to enhance patient safety and care quality.
All Levels
Curriculum on continuous quality improvement:
- Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) online modules
- Conferences on basic principles of continuous quality improvement including the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle and developing a plan to test change
- Conferences on root cause analysis and system change
- Attend at Morbidity, Mortality, and continuous quality Improvement
- Participation and engagement in multi-disciplinary unit based and departmental based quality committees
- Regular notification and initiatives of hospital-wide “report card” showing rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), central line associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), and ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP).
- Involvement in the AU Health Quality Improvement Symposium.
