QPSi Knowledgebase

Overview Image: 30-Day Unplanned Readmissions Visual Summary Case Summary Head and neck cancer patients undergoing major reconstructive surgery face complex recoveries that often lead to unplanned hospital readmissions. A 2016 study at UF Health revealed that 20% of these readmissions were unnecessary—patients who could have been managed in the clinic instead returned to the emergency department,...

Overview Image: EHR Tool Visual Summary Case Summary When a departmental restructuring separated the neurology ICU and general floor teams, critical patient information began falling through the cracks. This case study details how a physician-led, collaborative quality improvement initiative closed that gap — not through a costly IT overhaul, but by creatively leveraging tools already...

Overview Image: OR Utilization Visual Summary Case Summary At the University of Florida College of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, OR utilization had stalled at 75% for 15 years — leaving surgical capacity unused, patients waiting, and resources wasted. By building trustworthy data infrastructure, standardizing scheduling practices, and releasing anonymized performance data to surgeons,...

Overview Image: Hypoglycemia Reduction Visual Summary Case Summary When hospitalized patients experience dangerously low blood glucose, the consequences can be severe — and preventable. This case study follows a multidisciplinary team that used PDSA cycles and targeted interventions to cut severe hypoglycemic events nearly in half, improving patient safety. Their approach is a replicable model...

Quality Improvement in Clinical Practice Quality improvement is a systematic approach to examining how care is delivered and making evidence-informed changes to close the gap between what we know and what we do. It is not research in the traditional sense — it is the ongoing, practical work of ensuring that best practices reach patients...

Understanding Process Variation Control charts are powerful tools for monitoring how a process changes over time. By plotting data in sequence, these charts help you distinguish between the natural variation inherent in a stable process and variation that indicates a specific, identifiable problem has occurred. A control chart displays a centerline for the process average,...

Take QPSi’s free online training Large Language Models In Clinical Settings to learn more about how to integrate LLMs into your practice and earn free CME credit. Integrating AI into Your Clinical Practice Artificial intelligence, particularly in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs), is rapidly becoming a practical tool in professional settings. An LLM...

Understanding Model Trade-Offs When using an AI classification model to support clinical decisions, such as predicting which patients are at high risk for a specific condition, it is crucial to look beyond simple accuracy. Metrics like Positive Predictive Value (PPV), which measures the reliability of a positive prediction, and sensitivity, which measures how well the...

QI and Research: Similar Methods, Different Goals Quality improvement and clinical research are both systematic, data-driven approaches to advancing healthcare — but they serve fundamentally different purposes. Research seeks to generate new, generalizable knowledge that extends beyond a single institution, often testing a hypothesis across larger populations using fixed protocols. QI, by contrast, applies existing...