Quality Improvement in Healthcare Organizations

Have you ever though that healthcare quality could be improved - either where you get health care treatment or where you delivery health care? Have you ever thought that there should be a way for you to determine the relative quality of your choices? Have you found yourself thinking that there should be a way for you to provide your view and input on the quality of healthcare organization? Or do you work in a healthcare organization and find yourself thinking that there must be better ways to continuously and systematically improve the quality of your healthcare organization? If you have, this course is for you. Course content includes an overview of quality and quality improvement programs, measures, and data in healthcare organizations. The course provides links to external sites to connect you to the larger "real world" of healthcare organization quality and quality improvement. The links also serve as resources you can take with you after you complete the course experience. And because everyone loves a road trip/field trip, there are also "virtual field trips" to the often hidden places of interest on the web. The course format is readings, videos, quizzes, and a project. The project requires you to synthesize course material to design a quality improvement program for a healthcare organization the way you would have things run in the best of all worlds. The design (submitted as an electronic spreadsheet) is an artifact of the course which you can circulate to colleagues or use as the basis for talks or presentations

• Understand fundamentals of quality and improvement programs
• Evaluate healthcare quality using data and metrics
• Develop continuous monitoring mechanisms for service quality
• Use software tools to analyze quality data
• Engage with external resources to enhance knowledge continuously

• Basic computer and internet skills
• Ability to read course instructions in English and complete short practice activities