Use of Measures in EQIPP

Measures are essential for quality improvement. They help determine the changes that lead to quantitative improvement in quality within your practice setting. Using measures for quality improvement helps your team do the following:

1. Obtain a baseline to measure your current level of care and create a starting point for improvement.
2. Identify gaps in practice and opportunities for improvement.
3. Select one or more gaps and create improvement project(s) to clarify the improvement idea(s) to be tested.
4. Test ideas quickly, on a small scale through Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycles to determine if changes lead to improvement.
5. Collect and analyze follow-up data to measure the results of the test.
6. Determine how to sustain successful changes and how to systematically integrate them into the culture, processes, and workflow of your practice.
7. Create additional improvement projects for the same or other key activities and repeat PDSA cycles until you reach the maximum potential of providing optimal newborn screening care.