Overview: Increasingly, health services researchers and providers have been called upon to evaluate the effectiveness of quality improvement (QI) activities that address gaps in quality and safety. State of the art evaluation methods include careful articulation and analysis of the conditions under which such interventions–and innovations are effective. It is important to understand how key contextual variables such as leadership, teamwork, culture, and resources contribute to the differences in outcomes observed across sites.
Building on a recent special supplement in Academic Pediatrics funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, this webinar explored two fundamental methodological issues in QI evaluation:
- How to design formative, theory-driven evaluation approaches to assess the contexts in which QI innovations work or can be adapted to work; and,
- How to clearly specify each part of a QI intervention and its context in any evaluative undertaking, across diverse settings.
Download presentation slides here.
FreeLearning Objectives: Two methodological frameworks for understanding and analyzing the role of context in QI interventions were presented. At the conclusion of the session, participants were able to:
- Understand the importance of context in QI effectiveness
- Understand and apply key frameworks for evaluating QI interventions
- Understand how contextual variables can be studied across multiple settings