Use of Measures in EQIPP

Measures are an essential component of quality improvement. They help identify gaps in practice and opportunities for improvement. Measuring the quality of health care and using those measurements to promote improvements will help 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 for your practice.