Quality Assurance and Improvement Flashcards

In a rural practice, you notice a pattern of delayed diagnosis of sepsis. Which QI methodology is BEST suited to rapidly test a small-scale change before wider implementation?

Answer: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle

The PDSA cycle is designed for iterative, small-scale testing of changes before broader rollout.

A critical incident review finds that a patient with chest pain waited 45 minutes before ECG. The MOST appropriate immediate systemic response is:

Answer: Implement a chest pain protocol with mandatory ECG within 10 minutes

Systemic protocol change addresses the process failure rather than blaming individuals.

Which type of clinical indicator measures the percentage of diabetic patients with HbA1c checked in the past 12 months?

Answer: Process indicator

A process indicator measures whether a recommended care step was performed.

When reviewing patient safety incidents, a 'near miss' is defined as:

Answer: An event that was caught before reaching the patient

A near miss is an event that could have caused harm but was intercepted before reaching the patient.

The Donabedian framework for healthcare quality assessment uses which three domains?

Answer: Structure, Process, Outcome

Donabedian's framework evaluates Structure (resources), Process (care delivery), and Outcome (results).

In a rural emergency department, a fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram is used to investigate a medication error. This tool primarily helps to:

Answer: Identify all potential contributing causes

The fishbone diagram is a cause-and-effect tool that maps all potential contributing factors to a problem.

A practice wants to reduce missed cervical cancer screening. Which approach follows the clinical audit cycle correctly?

Answer: Set standard → measure → implement change → re-audit

The correct audit cycle is: set standard, measure current performance, implement change, then re-audit to close the loop.