title: Continuous quality improvement and health educators: capitalizing on commonalities.
abstract: Quality improvement is increasingly at the forefront of health care, creating a growing demand in clinical settings for health professionals adept at understanding and optimizing systems of health care delivery. Compared with clinicians, administrators, and health services researchers, health educators have to date played less of a role in quality improvement. However, as this article argues, the potential for health educators to contribute to such efforts is great because health education and quality improvement are more similar in their goals and approaches than is commonly recognized. Health educators bring important skills to quality improvement practice in areas such as needs assessment, participatory planning, and evaluation. To illustrate the mutual benefits that arise when these two practices intersect, the implementation of an electronic patient scheduling system led by quality improvement professionals in a large home care agency is described.
authors: Visiting Nurse Service of New York, New York, NY 10001, USA. ahammarth@vnsny.org
authors: Ashley
authors: A
authors: Hammarth
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards; D006266:Health Education; D018574:Home Care Agencies / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010934:Planning Techniques; D024382:Professional Role; D015397:Program Evaluation; D058996:Quality Improvement; D000078329:Workforce