Quality Patient Safety Toolkit
Developing and implementing a quality improvement program in healthcare is a complex process with many challenges. Specifically designed with acute care and critical access hospitals in mind, this toolkit features resources necessary to create an effective quality improvement program. A quality improvement program requires input from all aspects of an organization including the board of directors, executive leadership, bedside healthcare providers and physicians along with patients and their families.
The resources available in the Quality-Patient Safety Toolkit include:
- Tactics to develop and implement a quality improvement plan
- How to include patients and their families
- How to identify monitoring opportunities
- How to review processes when an issue arises
Improving Quality Performance Measures
Performance improvement can strengthen an organization's strategies. These processes determine areas in need of improvement, reconstruct and improve processes to provide safe, high-quality care. Improving Quality Performance Measures supplies tools to assist with improvement projects identified in the organization.
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Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) Example
The Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a proactive risk tool to help predict which steps in a process have the highest likelihood of
leading to an adverse event. This tool allows a team to intervene and make changes to a process before something negative happens to a patient, visitor or staff member. This example is simply a starting point — designed to be customized to your individual organization. -
Guidance for Performing Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) with Performance Improvement Projects
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis is a structured way for healthcare organizations to identify and address potential issues and/or failures. This resource provides guidance on how to perform FMEAs.
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Quality and Patient Safety Performance Measures
This resource provides healthcare organizations with a variety of potential clinical performance measures that can be monitored on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.
Quality Improvement Programs
To provide safe, quality care, an organization requires a plan to improve processes continuously. Quality Improvement Programs originate from a team managed by leadership implementing various strategies to achieve success. Staff involved in these details realize the effects these processes bear on a facility. Below is a collection of tools that can benefit personnel to enhance practices consistently.
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Developing and Implementing a QI Plan
This resource discusses the components of an effective quality improvement plan with advice on how to develop and implement your own. It highlights the difference between a quality improvement plan vs. a quality improvement program, the optimal organizational structure of a quality improvement plan and the role leadership should take during planning development.
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AHRQ Practice Foundation Handbook, Module 14
This resource is a guide to creating quality improvement teams and how these teams can be effective in your organization.
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Introduction to the Toolkit for Using the AHRQ Quality Indicators: How To Improve Hospital Quality and Safety
This resource guides healthcare organizations in the step-by-step process of assessing and improving the quality and safety of care provided to patients. Resource information is flexible and modifiable based on the organization’s size and services offered.