Supporting the Pursuit of Quality Improvement Publication: What Your Organization Can Do Now

Abstract

Many health care organizations encourage frontline staff to pursue quality improvement (QI), local spread of those improvements, and publication of their work. Although much has been written about building and sustaining a culture of continuous QI, less is known about how to support success in QI rigor, credibility, spread, and publication. In this perspective article, we offer QI leaders practical suggestions to identify challenges in publishing QI and strategies to overcome these challenges. Health care organizations can assist QI teams with publication by intentionally formalizing scholarship early in their QI project work, providing accountability, and connecting the QI team to necessary resources. A carefully designed program supporting QI publication can both improve the rigor of QI work and enhance the professional development of QI professionals.

Re: Matulis JC, Manning DM. Supporting the Pursuit of Quality Improvement Publication: What Your Organization Can Do Now. Qual Manag Health Care. May 27, 2022. doi:10.1097/QMH.0000000000000377

“…We congratulate the authors1 and thank them for sharing this work with us as a confirmation of the steps our team has taken to develop a more integrated approach to the expectation of publication.…”

“…We are thrilled to read with great enthusiasm the commentary by Matulis and Manning, titled "Supporting the Pursuit of Quality Improvement Publication: What Your Organization Can Do Now." 1 At our organization, a large academic teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we have integrated a Practice-Based Research and Innovation (PBRI) portfolio within professional practice to foster, build, and support a culture of research and scholarship (including quality improvement [QI]) across the health professions. 2 As part of our strategic priority plan, our program has committed to purposefully establish a priority on knowledge dissemination-more specifically, to adopt a knowledge-to-action approach that conceptualizes knowledge translation as encompassing knowledge synthesis, dissemination, exchange, and adoption.…”

“…As part of our strategic priority plan, our program has committed to purposefully establish a priority on knowledge dissemination—more specifically, to adopt a knowledge-to-action approach that conceptualizes knowledge translation as encompassing knowledge synthesis, dissemination, exchange, and adoption. As part of the operational activities to support this priority, our team has cocreated activities mirroring the framework proposed within the Driver Diagram 1…”

“…We reflect on the 3 primary drivers identified1 in relation to our strategy and, more specifically, the activities we have implemented to operationalize our strategic priorities: Primary driver 1: Early, realistic assessment of scholarly ambitions . We currently include team research goals as part of an annual needs assessment for each of our health professional teams 3.…”

“…A gap within our program is the integration of early assessment of scholarly goals among our health professionals. This commentary1 has inspired a commitment to implement a more structured approach to evaluating the scholarly goals of each of our health professionals as they are recruited to our organization. This will provide our team with a very purposeful and customized professional plan for each of our team members.…”