History of CQI in Healthcare: Strengths and Weaknesses Analysis

This report provides an overview of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in healthcare. It begins by tracing the historical origins of CQI to the work of Walter Shewart and W. Edwards Deming, emphasizing its evolution and importance within the healthcare sector, particularly in response to resource scarcity. The report defines CQI as a structured process involving healthcare partners to proactively improve processes and healthcare outcomes. The strengths of CQI, such as fostering evidence-based services and improving healthcare efficiency through timely data and self-sustaining quality management, are highlighted. The report also addresses limitations, including managerial discretion complexities and the incremental focus of CQI, which may not always address the need for radical changes. The provided references support the claims made in the report.

The History of CQI in Healthcare and Strengths
and Weaknesses of CQI

Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in healthcare organizations can be defined as the
structured process that involves different healthcare partners in the process of implementing
proactive improvement in the processes so as to improve the healthcare outcomes. The origins of
CQI can be traced back to the work of Walter Shewart in the year 1920 that included a “plan do
study act cycle” that was further amplified by Deming in 1970s (Fernandez, Rozanski, Rathmell,
& Merrill, 2014). Cantiello, Kitsantas, Moncada, and Abdul (2016) also indicated in their study
that continuous quality improvement was one of the six multi pass elements that can be used for
achieving recognition, such as the NCQA recognition. In the health care sector, CQI gained an
importance because of the issue of resource scarcity that required healthcare organizations to
achieve more with less number of resources. CQI has been considered as the philosophy of care
in the healthcare sector (Bear-Lehman, Chippendale, & Albert, 2016).
One of the major strengths of CQI is that it fosters healthcare services that are evidence-based
along with improving the efficiency of the healthcare settings. The efficiency of healthcare
settings is the outcome of timely available useful data along with the self sustaining capabilities
to manage the quality (McCalman, et al., 2018). Continuous quality improvement in the
healthcare focuses on involving people in the planning and execution phases that will help in
meeting or exceeding the patient expectations. One of the major limitations associated with CQI
is associated with the managerial discretions (Price, Schwartz, Cohen, Manson, & Scott, 2017).
It is generally complex to obtain managerial desecration regarding the decisions related to
continuous improvement in the healthcare setting, in addition, CQI focuses on incremental
improvement but sometimes, a healthcare process or system needs to be completely altered so as
to find a new direction.

References
Bear-Lehman, J., Chippendale, T., & Albert, S. M. (2016). Approaches to screening and
assessment in gerontological occupational therapy. In K. F. Barney, C. Emerita, & M. A.
Perkinson (Eds.), Occupational Therapy with Aging Adults (pp. 74-85). ScienceDirect.
Cantiello, J., Kitsantas, P., Moncada, S., & Abdul, S. (2016). The evolution of quality
improvement in healthcare: patient-centered care and health information technology
applications. Journal of Hospital Administration, 5(2), 62-68.
Fernandez, V. E., Rozanski, M. J., Rathmell, J. P., & Merrill, D. G. (2014). Quality Assessment
and Improvement and Patient Safety in the Pain Clinic. In H. T. Benzon, J. P. Rathmell,
& R. W. Hurley, Practical Management of Pain (pp. 56-77.e5). Science Direct.
McCalman, J., Bailie, R., Bainbridge, R., McPhail-Bell, K., Percival, N., Askew, D., & Tsey, K.
(2018, March). Continuous quality improvement and comprehensive primary health care:
a systems framework to improve service quality and health. Front Public Health, 6,
Article 76.
Price, A., Schwartz, R., Cohen, J., Manson, H., & Scott, F. (2017). Assessing continuous quality
improvement in public health: Adapting lessons from healthcare. Healthc Policy, 12(3),
34-49.