Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:  

• Describe QI, continuous QI, what is quality, and who defines it.
• Describe why quality is an imperative for organizational survival and is a core business strategy for healthcare.
• Describe the QI process as a pragmatic science that gathers evidence, defines causes, implements changes, and measure result over time.
• Utilize PDCA and/or DMAIC as process improvement methodologies.
• Utilize quality tools including process mapping, run charts, brainstorming, Pareto diagrams, histograms, root cause analysis (RCA), team development, and change management.
• Describe statistics, statistical control, and variation including standard deviation, process capability, confidence and probability, distribution, correlation and causation, dependent and independent variable, and hypothesis development.
• Describe the types of control charts and when to use them.
• Describe variation in data and data collection.
• Describe lean methodology and how this methodology allows health care institutions to improve the quality of care for patients by reduction in waste and errors.