Quality improvement reports document efforts to develop superior operations through new strategies and methods. For example, a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that recent quality improvements saved 15,000 lives and more than $4 billion in unnecessary spending. Writing a quality improvement report involves providing a brief problem overview and functional descriptions of involved departments followed by a list of the actions taken to make beneficial changes.
Provide an outline of the problem. For example, common problems include the prevalence of a clinical condition, poor performance against an acceptable industry source, unusual incidents or special risks in your environment. Issues could also include customer dissatisfaction, complaints or grievances about access to services.
Decide on what you plan to investigate, such as company records and reports. Describe what data to include and what data to exclude. For example, base your analysis on one year of customer complaint reports.
List key measurement factors for improvement, ideally from a customer's point of view. Identify a performance target and specify a rationale or justification. Establish a baseline measurement and list the intervals at which you will measure improvements.
Describe your process for gathering information and the methods you used for assessing problems. List your data sources, such as medical records, claims data or customer service information. For example, if you chose to conduct a survey, describe your sampling process, survey size and survey administration protocol.
Analyze and interpret the gathered information to make conclusions about how to improve quality.
Describe your strategy for changing the situation. List the details of your interventions. Describe any other research that influences your decisions to implement your changes based on successes in similar situations. List the roles and responsibilities of all the people and resources involved, including compliance to state and federal regulations if required.
Describe what you have learned from each activity. Identify what activities can be applied system-wide to achieve similar outcomes in other areas of your organization.
