Continuous quality improvement and health promotion: can CQI lead to better outcomes?

This consideration of whether continuous quality improvement (CQI) can lead to better health outcomes opens by offering a list of questions Canadian health promotion (HP) organizations should consider in response to pressure to implement CQI. The next sections define "quality" and CQI and provide an overview of the CQI process and its main components of customer satisfaction scientific approach and team approach. This is followed by a consideration of the following HP issues as they relate to CQI: 1) the fact that HP does not produce goods and is not always a service; 2) customer satisfaction; 3) management structure; 4) data measurement emphasis and knowledge paradigms; 5) evaluation and outcomes; and 6) the importance of other agendas and influences in HP. Next the article evaluates whether 1) the philosophy of CQI is compatible with that of HP 2) CQIs methodology and approach is compatible with HP 3) implementing CQI processes would improve HP practice and goal achievement 4) an appropriate HP/CQI model could be developed from the steps suggested 5) better options than CQI exist for improving HP 6) there are reasons not to implement CQI and 7) there are any consequences of not implementing CQI. The article ends by recommending that HP organizations clarify what CQI can address document the impact of CQI make appropriate modifications in the CQI model view CQI as a tool to furthering HP goals and address basic HP issues.