Introduction to the Academy for Healthcare Improvement conference on advancing the methods for healthcare quality improvement research

Nearly two decades ago, the International Scientific Symposium on Improving the Quality and Value of Health Care was created to foster the mission of building a scholarly foundation for quality improvement education and research. The program of presentations at the inaugural symposium was comprised almost entirely of non-experimental, before-after studies that are subject to significant problems with reliability and validity. The passing years have seen an evolving trend toward robust study designs with more rigorous statistical methods such as process control and interrupted time-series analyses. The foundation for quality improvement established over the past twenty years has created a repository of evidence. Quality improvement has a proliferation of publications appearing in peer-reviewed journals. Discipline specific outlets have emerged such as the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety in Health Care, Implementation Science, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, Journal for Healthcare Quality, and Journal of Nursing Care Quality. However, the methodology in quality improvement and implementation science must become on par with the methods in health economics and related areas of health services research if quality improvement research is to materialize into evidence-based health care and contribute to health care reform. Practitioners and researchers in the field of quality improvement recognize the need to elevate the relevance and value of their research. The potential contribution of implementation science as a strategic approach for obtaining safe, efficient, and effective health care is too easily overlooked without a solid record of publication in the scientific literature. The need to generate the best evidence for systematic quality improvement was the driving factor for a conference on Advancing the Methods for Healthcare Quality Improvement Research, held on May 7-8, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. The aims of the conference were 1) to reflect on the past two decades of quality improvement and quality improvement research and appreciate the emergence of methods and techniques in the literature today, and 2) to define quality improvement research, characterize its strengths, and propose future directions for quality improvement research and implementation science. This conference set out to further the goal of elevating quality improvement research to a higher level of validity and value. The conference presented information on the conduct of quality improvement research, including study design, data registries, comparative effectiveness, and the issue of health care disparities. In addition, there were several talks on sophisticated methods including robust quasi-experimental designs, hybrid research designs, and risk-adjusted statistical process control. By the use of key speakers, a call for abstracts for podium and poster presentations, and case-based learning using examples of best methods in the literature, this conference was a forum on the current state and future needs of quality improvement research and its methodological and technical issues. The proceedings of this conference are presented in this supplement to provide a series of concise papers that describe the key messages of the presentations and * Correspondence: [email protected] Center for Health Services Research, Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC), Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Nashville, Tennessee, 37212, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Speroff et al. Implementation Science 2013, 8(Suppl 1):I1 http://www.implementationscience.com/content/8/S1/I1