Healthcare Quality Improvement Concepts & Tools

PREREQUISITE:  None

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The following represents the course competencies for this class.  Competencies are equivalent for all lecture and distance learning courses. Following each competency is the assignment used to gain mastery of this area of study.

This course introduces students to the development and history of healthcare quality improvement techniques, terminology, and concepts in healthcare organizations. This course will also explore the foundations of healthcare quality improvement (QI) concepts and tools. Students will learn about quality improvement in a historical context through lectures, discussions, and critiques. Students will have an opportunity to identify and analyze quality improvement trends in healthcare settings.  A variety of crucial topics will be addressed, including quality improvement theory, practice, and management of performance, quality improvement processes in healthcare organizations, performance improvement frameworks, identifying opportunities for improvement, management of data sets, legal implications of performance improvement, and continuous monitoring and improvement functions. Other topics may be covered if time permits.

AQUIRED SKILLS:

• SWOT Analysis
• Evaluation Skills
• Critiquing and Analyzing

UPON COMPLETION OF THE COURSE, THE STUDENT WILL BE COMPETENT IN:

• Defining key terms, concepts, and functions of healthcare quality improvement techniques, concepts and tools.
• Explaining the development and history of quality performance and improvement for healthcare organizations.
• Understanding the impact of healthcare quality improvement on the operations of healthcare organizations.
• Developing and evaluating healthcare quality improvement concepts and tools.
• Comparing the different quality improvement methods and models for healthcare.
• Utilizing quality improvement concepts and tools to research, collect, analyze, and interpret data in healthcare.
• Explaining the overall process involved with identifying and developing healthcare quality improvement initiatives.
• Describing the importance of data, data-driven leadership, and measurement for the organization.
• Relating the impact of leadership on change, organizational quality, and patient outcomes.
• Identifying healthcare quality improvement opportunities based on performance outcomes.
• Applying knowledge of performance improvement frameworks to applicable situations in healthcare arenas.
• Critiquing and analyzing healthcare quality improvement techniques and trends in healthcare settings.
• Describing the quality improvement (QI) tools necessary to achieve accreditation, certification, or licensure in healthcare organizations.
• Describing the efforts of a team-based approach to QI and the impact of standard operational and clinical care models on QI and patient care.
• Understanding the legal implications of healthcare quality performance improvement activities.
• Demonstrating how artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged to analyze and interpret data in the healthcare quality improvement concepts and tools environment.