title: Pioneering a Nursing Home Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative: A Case Study of Method and Lessons Learned.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the development of a nursing home (NH) quality improvement learning collaborative (QILC) that provides Lean Six Sigma (LSS) training and infrastructure support for quality assurance performance improvement change efforts.
  
  
  METHODS
  Case report.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-seven NHs located in the Greater Rochester, NY area.
  
  
  METHODS
  The learning collaborative approach in which interprofessional teams from different NHs work together to improve common clinical and organizational processes by sharing experiences and evidence-based practices to achieve measurable changes in resident outcomes and system efficiencies.
  
  
  METHODS
  NH participation, curriculum design, LSS projects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over 6 years, 27 NHs from urban and rural settings joined the QILC as organizational members and sponsored 47 interprofessional teams to learn LSS techniques and tools, and to implement quality improvement projects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NHs, in both urban and rural settings, can benefit from participation in QILCs and are able to learn and apply LSS tools in their team-based quality improvement efforts.
authors.affiliation: Division of Geriatrics and Aging, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY. Electronic address: suzanne_gillespie@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Suzanne M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Gillespie
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
authors.forename: Tobie
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Olsan
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
authors.forename: Dianne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liebel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY.
authors.forename: Xueya
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
authors.forename: Reginald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics, School of Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL.
authors.forename: Paul R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Katz
authors.affiliation: Division of Geriatrics and Aging, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY.
authors.forename: Jurgis
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Karuza
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006801:Humans; D009518:New York; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000592:standards*; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D058996:Quality Improvement
keywords: Nursing homes; quality assurance and performance improvement; quality improvement learning collaborative