Quality Improvement Research

Improvement in Quality of care isa a given in today's health services. How this can best be achieved is still the subject of research and debate. The methodologies for research in managing change are the subject of this book. Based on a series published jointly in the British Medical Journal and Quality and Safety in Health Care it discusses the techniques for research leading to cahnge and improvemnet of care. Chapters Include: Quality Improvement Research Using Routine Comparative Data to Assess the Quality of Health Care Research methods used in developing and applying quality indicators in primary care Qualitative Methods in Research on Healthcare Quality Research on Patients' Views in the Evaluation and Improvement of Quality of Care Research Designs for Studies Evaluating the Effectiveness of Change and Improvement Strategies Evaluation of Quality Improvement Programmes Process evaluation on quality improvement programmes Systematic Reviews Desiging a quality improvemnt intervention Methods for Evaluation of Small Scale Quality Improvement Projects Economic Evaluation Statistical Process Control as a Tool for Research and Healthcare Improvement Written by internationally recognised workers in quality improvement, this is and important reference for all health care workers and managers charged with evaluating and improving the quality of care in their institutions.

Richard Grol, Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare, The Netherlands. Professor Richard Baker, PhD, CEng, CSci, is Professor of Clinical Gait analysis, University of Salford. Richard has spent nearly twenty years delivering or managing clinical gait analysis services. For nine years he was Manager of the Hugh Williamson Gait Analysis Service at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. During this time he served as Founder Director of the NHMRC Centre for Clinical Research Excellence in Gait Analysis. He is the first Professor of Clinical Gait Analysis anywhere in the world and is currently developing a Joint European Masters Degree programme in clinical movement analysis with colleagues in Belgium and the Netherlands.