title: The contribution of case study research to knowledge of how to improve quality of care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Efforts to improve the implementation of effective practice and to speed up improvements in quality and patient safety continue to pose challenges for researchers and policy makers. Organisational research, and, in particular, case studies of quality improvement, offer methods to improve understanding of the role of organisational and microsystem contexts for improving care and the development of theories which might guide improvement strategies.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper reviews examples of such research and details the methodological issues in constructing and analysing case studies. Case study research typically collects a wide array of data from interviews, documents and other sources.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Advances in methods for coding and analysing these data are improving the quality of reports from these studies.
authors: Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 3M6. ross.baker@utoronto.ca
authors: G Ross
authors: GR
authors: Baker
mesh_terms: D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D058996:Quality Improvement