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Healthcare Management vocabulary · Quality and Accreditation

Quality improvement

Meaning in healthcare management, with examples

nounCore term

In healthcare management, quality improvement means: A planned, continuous effort to make care safer, more effective and more efficient by measuring results, testing changes and learning from them.

In Turkish: kalite iyileştirme, kalite geliştirme

How it is used

Often shortened to QI. Hospitals run QI projects, have QI teams and train staff in methods such as the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. The term is used both for the general approach and for specific projects.

Example sentences

  1. Our quality improvement project cut the time to antibiotics for sepsis patients by half.

  2. Every department must present one quality improvement initiative a year.

Common collocations

  • quality improvement project
  • quality improvement team
  • continuous quality improvement
  • quality improvement plan
  • KPIShort for key performance indicator: a measurable value, such as waiting time or infection rate, that shows how well a hospital or team is meeting its goals.
  • clinical auditA review that compares the care actually given with agreed standards, so that gaps can be found, practice changed and the results checked again.
  • accreditationOfficial recognition by an independent body that a hospital or service meets agreed standards of quality and safety, given after a detailed assessment.
  • lean managementAn approach, first developed in car manufacturing at Toyota, that improves processes by removing waste, such as waiting, unnecessary steps and errors, while adding value for the patient.
  • benchmarkA standard or result, often from other hospitals or national data, that you compare your own performance with.

More terms: Quality and Accreditation

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.