Our goal as health care professionals is to provide patients with the best care available.
One important challenge is the slow translation of research evidence into clinical practice. It is essential that such “knowledge translation” is efficient and timely to ensure that patients receive the most effective therapies and achieve improved outcomes.1 Currently, the gap between publication of clinical research findings and their implementation into routine clinical practice is substantial2 and leads to suboptimal health care delivery.3 Alan Jette, PT, PhD, FAPTA, addressed this issue in the 43rd Mary McMillan Lecture, in which he shared his vision for the physical therapy profession to be a leader in implementing evidence-based strategies for health promotion and treatment interventions.4
One approach to facilitating the translation of research into clinical practice is the use of systematic quality improvement (QI) processes. Quality improvement attempts to change clinician behavior and, through those changes, lead to more consistent, appropriate, and efficient application of established clinical interventions, resulting in improved care and patient outcomes.5 Quality improvement is an intrinsic part of good clinical practice and is designed to bring about immediate improvements in health care in local settings.6 Quality improvement assumes that quality and safety are characteristics of health care systems, and many QI activities involve groups of clinicians, managers, and staff cooperating to improve procedures and practices.6
Quality improvement differs from human subject research in that the latter identifies new, effective therapies, whereas QI interventions are designed to enhance the real-world implementation of proven therapies, such as implementing an evidence-based practice guideline.6 To increase the reliable use of clinical research, not only does practitioner behavior need to change, but changes must occur in the culture of health care teams and organizations.7 Two very successful QI projects8–10 have …
