Quality Improvement (QI) / Process Improvement (PI)

Resources in this section come from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). The IHI's goal is to build practical improvement capability based on the science of improvement into every organization, health care executive, and professional, while driving innovation to dramatically improve performance at all levels of the health care system.

From New York State Emergency Medical Services Council & New York State Department of Health, Bureau of EMS (Version 1, March 2007)

Workbook and Guidance Document for Service Level and Regional Level Quality Improvement Activities. As a tool, this manual should be used by any of the stakeholders – EMS agencies, regional councils, regional emergency medical advisory councils, program agencies, course sponsors, or hospitals – in developing and initiating QI programs for prehospital care.

The Pediatric Evidence-based Guidelines: Assessment of EMS System Utilization in States (PEGASUS) project guideline development committee developed these quality measures using a consensus-based process—defining potential measures for each of the nine evidence-based guidelines from the project that had an evidence-base as a potential quality metric. Each were categorized, differentiated the type of metric (process vs. outcome vs. structural), and defined the Institute of Medicine (now known as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine) quality domain(s) that applied for each metric.

This measure is intended to assist EMS professionals in enhancing quality of care. The Measure is not a clinical guideline and does not establish a standard of medical care and has not been tested for all potential applications. NEMSQA encourages testing and evaluation of its Measures.

Created by the National Association of State EMS Officials as a deliverable for their EBG for Prehospital Pain Management project (funded by the NHTSA Office of EMS), document includes performance measures for evaluating adherence to the evidence-based guideline for prehospital pain management.