Scholarship - Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement

We encourage our quality improvement teams to pursue two types of scholarship; presenting at conferences and publishing in journals. Both are effective ways to establish yourself in communities of individuals and organizations that have similar interests and to enhance your quality improvement network.

Publish and Report – Conferences

Presenting at conferences has many benefits. In addition to networking with others interested in a similar field, presenting spreads scientific advancement, supports platforms for idea spread, and enhances communication skills associated with individual and team research.

When preparing to present at conferences, it is imperative to consider as many facts about the presentation and conference as possible. Suggested topics to consider include timeline and format of proposal, topic or theme of the conference, audience, how to share contact information, funding sources, and expenses (travel, lodging, food).

Many conferences offer the opportunity to present posters. You can view examples of posters from IHQI’s annual Improvement Scholars Symposium.

Publish and Report – Journals

Learn to write excellent, usable articles about quality improvement in healthcare. For more information about publishing, become familiar with the SQUIRE Guidelines and website which are listed below with other resources.

There are a variety of journals that accept quality improvement manuscripts. IHI recommends reading several recent issues of a journal to determine which journal may be most suitable for your publication. Consider the topic(s) of interest presented in your research and those considered by the journal. A (non-exhaustive) list of journals can be found at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s School Resources.

You can also use the online resource JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) to determine a journal “home” for your paper. Simply paste in the title or abstract, click on “Find Journals” and a list of best-matched journals will be generated for you. JANE can also help you find relevant articles to cite in your paper or authors to review your paper.

If you are considering presenting or publishing results, be sure to submit your project or initiative to the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Resources

Read	Squire 2.0 Guidelines – Review of SQUIRE 1.0 to 2.0 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – “Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors” Publishing Your Quality Improvement Work – This slide presentation was created by IHQI Associate Director, Jennifer Elston Lafata, PhD Writing to Improve Healthcare – This book is a ‘what and how to’ guide to writing for successful scholarly publication in the emerging fields of healthcare improvement and patient safety. It offers practical advice that includes preparation and organization of a scholarly healthcare improvement manuscript, where to submit it to find the most likely interested editor and journal, how to take full advantage of coauthors’ working together effectively, and strategies for authors to reach a broader health professions readership Organising a Manuscript Reporting Quality Improvement or Patient Safety Research – promoting, writing and publishing quality improvement Toward Stronger Evidence on Quality Improvement – the importance and challenge of publishing quality improvement work
Use	High Value Quality Improvement Dissemination – This document from the High Value Practice Academic Alliance (HVPAA) details avenues to disseminate high value care or quality improvement projects/ideas/cases, including journals, web-based platforms and conferences. Squire Website – SQUIRE stands for Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence. The SQUIRE guidelines provide a framework for reporting new knowledge about how to improve healthcare. They are intended for reports that describe system level work to improve the quality, safety and value of healthcare. The UNC Children’s Clinical Portal – is a central repository of clinical pathways and guideline documents to decrease practice variation and maximize the quality of care delivered by UNC physicians, advanced practice providers, and nurses who care for children across the state.
Watch	University of Wisconsin and the Health Innovation Program – This site contains several resources to help clinicians publish the results of their quality improvement work within healthcare organizations (Video – 2:43)