Healthcare Quality Professionals Research Articles

External peer review in Europe: an overview from the ExPeRT Project. External Peer Review Techniques.

This paper aims to evaluate the use and development of external peer review models and to identify where the main models are used in European Union member states and countries with reciprocal research agreements with the European Union. The ExPeRT (external peer review techniques) project research team conducted a series of fact-finding missions to all participating European nations. Study participants. I. Blomberg, Sweden; L. Bohigas, Spain; S. Cucic, The Netherlands; P. Morosini, Italy. The Project is led by C. Shaw, UK and is managed by C. Heaton, CASPE Research. We identified four main external peer review models aimed at measuring the quality of service management and delivery: health care accreditation, the International Organization for Standardization ISO 9000 standards, the European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model and visitatie, which is Dutch for 'visitation' or peer review-based schemes. ExPeRT has demonstrated that in principle, convergence of the four main models in order to gain from each model's key strengths is feasible. Whether convergence is practical, depends upon the willingness of governments, health service providers, health care quality professionals and organizations to come together and adopt the recommendations of the ExPeRT project.

Readers' forum: some commonly asked questions about reengineering.

In this special issue of Journal for Healthcare Quality (JHQ), Readers' Forum takes a question-and-answer format. The questions on reengineering are answered by JHQ editorial review board members Suzanne Belanger, Nancy Claflin, and Danny van Leeuwen, all of whom have experience in this critical area affecting healthcare quality professionals.

Strategies for involving physicians in continuous quality improvement.

To realize significant and sustained improvement in quality and in overall performance, hospitals must have the support and participation of the medical staff. Although it sometimes is difficult to recruit busy physicians to join the effort, they will become champions if their experience is productive and results in improved patient care. This article outlines a number of straightforward approaches that will help healthcare quality professionals obtain physician involvement in the improvement effort.