Quality Assurance and Improvement Flashcards
7 cards from real PCE 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 Assurance and Improvement flashcards as text
A physiotherapy clinic notices a rise in patient fall incidents during gait training. Which QI tool is BEST suited to identify root causes?
Answer: Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram
A fishbone diagram systematically maps potential causes across categories (equipment, environment, staff, process) to identify root causes of adverse events.
In quality improvement, a 'run chart' is primarily used to:
Answer: Display data over time to detect trends or shifts
A run chart plots data points sequentially over time, allowing clinicians to identify trends, shifts, or cycles in a process.
Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of a clinical audit in physiotherapy?
Answer: Systematic review of practice against defined standards
A clinical audit compares current practice against evidence-based standards to identify gaps and drive improvement.
A PT department wants to reduce average wait time for initial assessment. Using PDSA cycles, after implementing a new scheduling protocol (Do phase), what comes NEXT?
Answer: Study the data to determine if the change worked
After implementing the change (Do), the Study phase involves analyzing collected data to assess whether the intervention achieved its goal.
Which indicator is an example of a PROCESS measure in physiotherapy quality monitoring?
Answer: Percentage of patients who received a falls risk screen at initial assessment
Process measures evaluate whether specific clinical steps are performed, such as completing a falls risk screen, regardless of the outcome.
A physiotherapist reviews outcomes data and finds that patients with lower back pain treated with manual therapy show better outcomes than those treated with exercise alone. This type of quality review is BEST characterized as:
Answer: Retrospective outcomes analysis
Retrospective outcomes analysis reviews previously collected data to compare treatment effectiveness after care has been provided.
In the context of quality improvement, 'benchmarking' refers to:
Answer: Comparing performance metrics against best-practice standards or top-performing organizations
Benchmarking involves comparing a clinic's performance data against external standards or high-performing peers to identify improvement opportunities.