Systematic reviews provide the best evidence on the effectiveness of healthcare interventions including quality improvement strategies. The methods of systematic review of individual patient randomised trials of healthcare interventions are well developed. We discuss methodological and practice issues that need to be considered when undertaking systematic reviews of quality improvement strategi...

BACKGROUND Organisational context is frequently cited as an important consideration when implementing and evaluating quality improvement interventions in healthcare, but limited guidance is available on which aspects of context are most influential or modifiable. This paper examines how internal and external contextual factors mediate organisational-level performance improvement through applyin...

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 problem...

INTRODUCTION There is a limited body of research in the field of healthcare improvement science (HIS). Quality improvement and 'change making' should become an intrinsic part of everyone's job, every day in all parts of the healthcare system. The lack of theoretical grounding may partly explain the minimal transfer of health research into health policy. METHODS This article seeks to present t...

This is the fifth in a series of articles about the science of quality improvement. We examine the nature of healthcare commissioning and its role as a driver for quality improvement. We draw on evidence from previous forms of primary-care-led commissioning (PCLC) and consider how the quality of care might be improved through the processes of commissioning.

Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine; Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Surgery, and Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Rockville, Maryland, USA U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease ...