Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Flashcards
7 cards from real CPE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Quality Improvement & Patient Safety flashcards as text
A physician executive implements a mandatory debrief after all unexpected patient deaths. This practice PRIMARILY supports which patient safety concept?
Answer: Organizational learning from adverse events to prevent recurrence
Post-event debriefs are a learning system tool that converts adverse events into actionable system improvements, a cornerstone of a safety culture.
Which accreditation standard requires hospitals to conduct a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) after a sentinel event?
Answer: The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Policy
The Joint Commission's Sentinel Event Policy requires accredited organizations to conduct a credible RCA and develop an action plan following sentinel events.
A physician executive is designing a patient safety curriculum for residents. The MOST important topic from a systems-thinking perspective is:
Answer: Understanding how organizational systems and latent conditions contribute to errors
Systems thinking shifts the focus from individual blame to understanding how organizational design, workflow, and latent conditions create environments where errors are inevitable.
A hospital's infection control team wants to benchmark CLABSI rates. The MOST appropriate national benchmarking database is:
Answer: CDC National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)
CDC's NHSN is the national standard for HAI surveillance and benchmarking, used by hospitals to compare CLABSI rates against risk-adjusted national baselines.
In healthcare QI, a 'balancing measure' is BEST described as:
Answer: A measure that monitors whether improving one part of a system causes unintended harm elsewhere
Balancing measures detect unintended negative consequences in other parts of the system when a QI improvement is implemented, ensuring the intervention doesn't create new problems.
A physician executive is leading a QI project using the Model for Improvement. The first question of the Model asks teams to:
Answer: Define what the team is trying to accomplish
The first of three Model for Improvement questions is 'What are we trying to accomplish?' which establishes the aim statement that anchors the entire project.
Which safety strategy involves designing systems so that the correct action is easier to perform than the incorrect one?
Answer: Default to safe design
Designing defaults to the safest option (e.g., lowest infusion pump dose as default) reduces errors by making the safe choice the path of least resistance.