Ide ntifying e vide nc e

THE HEALTH FOUNDATION 9 Evidence scan: Quality improvement training for healthcare professionals

1.3 Ide ntifying e vide nc e

he review summarises the indings of 367 articles. To collate evidence for the scan, 10 bibliographic databases were searched: Medline, Embase, ERIC, Science Citation Index, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, NHS Evidence, PsychLit, Web of Science, Google Scholar and the Health Management Information Consortium. he focus was on readily available literature published between 1980 and November 2011. Articles from any country and in any language were eligible for inclusion. Articles about training in quality improvement outside healthcare were not included. he search terms included combinations of the following words and other similes: education, training, curriculum, course, competencies, teaching, learning, quality improvement, improving quality, improvement science, science of improvement, quality, continuous quality improvement and PDSA. In addition, the quality improvement domains listed in Table 1 were used. Articles about training in planning, systems thinking, the philosophy of science, needs assessment, health policy, learning styles, leadership, risk management and self-relection were identiied in order to assess whether these courses also included other components of quality improvement training. Furthermore, the scan identiied examples of training by searching the websites and course outlines of organisations such as the General Medical Council and all royal colleges, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement IHI, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, the Improvement Foundation and academic institutions. Sixty organisations were contacted for information about their quality improvement curricula. More than 5,000 pieces of descriptive and empirical evidence were analysed to draw out key themes about the types of training available and the most efective training methods. Of these, 367 of the most relevant and high-quality studies were summarised as examples alongside descriptive and narrative articles to provide context. he chosen articles were selected based on relevance to addressing the topics of interest, methodological quality, novelty of content and accessibility. he scan does not purport to summarise all available studies about training in quality improvement, but rather seeks to provide a lavour of the available research and an overview of key trends and changes. Unless geographic trends are speciically noted, the information reported relects what is happening throughout the Western world in generalised terms. THE HEALTH FOUNDATION 10 Evidence scan: Quality improvement training for healthcare professionals his section describes some of the content covered in courses about quality improvement and the variety of training methods used.

2.1 Co nte nt c ove re d