As a medical student stepping into the clinical setting with fresh eyes that veteran physicians entrenched in the day-to-day delivery of care no longer have, you may be able to spot changes that can be made to improve the quality of care patients receive and find ways to make the system more efficient for everyone.
An education module offered via the AMA Ed Hub™ helps medical students—and residents and physicians who may not have received training during their medical school years—better understand quality improvement (QI), how to measure quality, and make sustainable QI changes.
The AMA Ed Hub is an online platform that consolidates all the high-quality CME, maintenance of certification, and educational content you need—in one place—with activities relevant to you, automated credit tracking and reporting for some states and specialty boards.
The free online module, “Essentials of Quality Improvement is enduring material and designated by the AMA for a maximum of 0.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. It is one of thirteen modules released as part of the Health Systems Science Learning Series.
Learn more about AMA CME accreditation.
How do you measure quality?
According to the module, these are the four types of quality measures that provide a framework to understand and assess quality in healthcare.
Structural measures. These reflect the underlying design of the healthcare system; for example, looking at patient access to a primary care physician.
Process measures. These are activities physicians and other health care professionals carry out to deliver services provided as part of preventive care and managing chronic diseases. For example, assessing the percent of women receiving mammograms according to national screening guidelines.
Outcome measures. Patients’ health statuses based on the healthcare they received, for example, blood pressure readings, body mass indexes and death.
Balancing measures. Determining whether changing one part of the system positively or negatively impacts another part of the system. For example, discovering walk-in primary care hours reduces the number of emergency department visits.
The module also familiarizes physicians-in-training with six sources from which they can obtain the data they need to measure and analyze: administrative data, patient record data, registries focused on specific populations, surveillance data, survey data and direct observation.
How do you improve quality?
Once you understand where you can find data, there are several methods to go about defining a problem and creating a solution: model for improvement, plan-do-study-act, lean and Six Sigma. Each is explored in greater depth in the module.
No one method is better than another when it comes to QI and different projects may be better suited to one method than another. The underlying principles of analysis, measurement and review are part of each methodology.
No matter which method is used, physicians, nurses and the administrative staff need to be part of the process and embrace the solutions so that changes are sustainable and not seen as a “flavor-of-the-month” initiative.
Opportunities abound. You will be seen as a QI champion if you can demonstrate leadership, advance patient safety and improve clinical outcomes. Fortunately, general management, clinical care, advocacy, public health, research and education all provide opportunities in those areas. Look for leadership seminars, committee or council memberships and nonclinical internships and fellowships.
Refreshed in 2024, the AMA Health Systems Science Learning Series—brought to you by the AMA ChangeMedEd Initiative—prepares medical students to successfully navigate complex health systems, enhance patient care, improve outcomes, and work toward fulfilling the promise of the Quintuple Aim. For medical students looking to hone their leadership skills, the AMA offers the chance to distinguish yourself through more than 1,000 leadership opportunities and skill building through online training modules, project-based learning and more.
