Clinical Quality Improvement

What This Section Has to Offer

You’ll find everything you need to stay informed and keep you up to date on quality improvement issues that are reshaping the healthcare industry. Plus access education, tools and resources to prepare you for the future, simplify your life and help you “redesign” your medical practice for optimal patient care.

Why do QI?

In 2001, Institutes of Medicine published the landmark report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. The Chasm report described the current gaps in care and put forth six aims for improving America’s health care system, namely that health care should be safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered (STEEEP). It also recommended that a set of priority conditions be established to guide improvement efforts, the majority of which are treated by family physicians every day. As a family physician, or a member of the family medicine team you are in a unique position to systematically improve the quality of medical care in our nation. The AAFP can help. Click on clinical quality improvement resources below or contact an AAFP quality improvement staff member for additional information or assistance.

Quality Improvement (QI) Tools & Resources -- Access tools and resources to systematically guide your office toward better patient care. You’ll find information and resources to help you select a QI topic, implement a QI project in your practice, research clinical information systems and decision support options, stay updated on performance measurement and pay-for-performance, locate quality improvement activities in your state, and redesign your practice to provide optimal patient care.

CME With a QI Focus -- The Academy has several continuing medical education programs with a quality improvement focus. Learn more about METRIC, the Practice Enhancement Forum, Performance Measures Training Program and the Practice Redesign & Performance Improvement Courses offered at the 2006 Annual Scientific Assembly.

TransforMED -- Established in 2005, TransforMED provides ongoing consultation and support to physicians looking to transform their practices to a model of care that is based on the concept of a relationship-centered personal medical home.

Center for Health Information Technology (CHiT) -- The Center for Health Information Technology is the focal point of the AAFP's technical expertise, advocacy, research, and member services associated with medical office automation and computerization.

QI Website Survey -- Please tell us if the information provided on this site was useful, if you found the information you were looking for and how we can make your next visit better. The survey takes just a minute to complete.