PURPOSE Key issues in measuring and improving the quality of healthcare are discussed with an emphasis on applying quality-improvement principles in ambulatory care pharmacy practice. SUMMARY The various perspectives on healthcare quality (including those of patients, providers, and payers) are reviewed, and the basic principles of quality measurement and improvement are outlined. Many health...

There are no easy solutions to the problem of improving the quality of care. Research has shown how difficult it can be, but has failed to provide reliable and effective ways to change services and professional performance for the better. Much depends on the perspectives of users and the attitudes and behaviours of professionals in the context of their organisations and healthcare teams. Qualit...

This commentary reviews a recent piece by Burton and Rycroft-Malone on the use of Resource Based View (RBV) in healthcare organizations. It first outlines the core content of their piece. It then discusses their attempts to extend RBV to the analysis of large scale quality improvement efforts in healthcare. Some critique is elaborated. The broader question of why RBV seems to be migrating into ...

This account of practice discusses how we use action learning (AL) sets as part the supervision process for quality improvement (QI) projects in healthcare. Reflecting on synergies between QI and AL reveals that questioning approach both links closely with Calgary Cambridge Communication model, taught medicine, to guide medical interviews. While communication model provides student a framework ...