Why is QAPI Crucial to Quality Healthcare?
Launching and sustaining a QAPI program opens your team up to a set of rewards that will benefit patients in a number of ways. The rewards of a QAPI program include:
- Competencies that equip you to solve quality problems and prevent their recurrence
- Competencies that allow you to seize opportunities to achieve new goals
- Fulfillment for caregivers, as they become active partners in performance improvement
- Better care and better quality of life for your residents.
Design and Scope
A QAPI program must be ongoing and comprehensive, dealing with the full range of services offered by the facility, including the full range of departments. The QAPI program should address all systems of care and management practices, and should always include clinical care, quality of life, and resident choice. It aims for safety and high quality with all clinical interventions while emphasizing autonomy and choice in daily life for patients.
Governance and Leadership
The healthcare facility develops a culture that involves leadership seeking input from facility staff, residents, and their families and/or representatives. Adequate resources must be available for all QAPI efforts, which includes designating one or more individuals to lead QAPI efforts. Their responsibilities include setting expectations around safety, quality, rights, choice, and respect by balancing safety with resident-centered rights and choice. This ensures accountability, while creating an atmosphere where staff identify and report quality problems as well as opportunities for improvement.
Feedback, Data Systems, and Monitoring
The facility puts in place systems to monitor care and services, drawing data from multiple sources. Feedback systems actively incorporate input from staff, residents, families, and others as appropriate. This element includes using Performance Indicators to monitor a wide range of care processes and outcomes, and reviewing findings against benchmarks and/or targets the facility has established for performance. It also includes tracking, investigating, and monitoring Adverse Events that must be investigated every time they occur, and action plans implemented to prevent recurrences.
Performance Improvement Projects (PIPs)
A Performance Improvement Project (PIP) is a concentrated effort on a particular problem in one area of the facility or facility wide. It involves gathering information systematically to clarify issues or problems, and intervening for improvements. The facility conducts PIPs to examine and improve care or services in areas that the facility identifies as needing attention. Areas that need attention will vary depending on the type of facility and the unique scope of services they provide.
Systematic Analysis and Systemic Action
The facility uses a systematic approach to determine when in-depth analysis is needed to fully understand the problem, its causes, and implications of a change. The facility uses a thorough and highly structured approach to determine how identified problems may be caused or exacerbated by the way care and services are organized or delivered. Additionally, facilities will be expected to develop policies and procedures and demonstrate proficiency in the use of Root Cause Analysis. Systemic Actions look comprehensively across all involved systems to prevent future events and promote sustained improvement. This element includes a focus on continual learning and continuous improvement.