ReviewAmerican journal of public health2001
The quality improvement-research divide and the need for external oversight.
Review in American journal of public health, 2001. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Commentary on "Protecting Against Unintended Risk From Student Quality Improvement Projects in Health Care".Advances in health information science and practice · 2026Article
- Ethical considerations in quality improvement: key questions and a practical guide.BMJ open quality · 2021Article
- Explanation and elaboration of the SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) Guidelines, V.2.0: examples of SQUIRE elements in the healthcare improvement literature.BMJ quality & safety · 2016Article
- A decision tool to guide the ethics review of a challenging breed of emerging genomic projects.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2016Review
- Developing a practice-based research network by integrating quality improvement: challenges and ingredients for success.Clinical and translational science · 2012Article
- Confronting and resolving an ethical dilemma associated with a practice based evaluation using observational methodology of health information technology.Applied clinical informatics · 2010Article
- Ethical issues in using data from quality management programs.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2009Review
- High quality care and ethical pay-for-performance: a Society of General Internal Medicine policy analysis.Journal of general internal medicine · 2009Article
- Quality assurance and improvement practice in mental health agencies: roles, activities, targets and contributions.Administration and policy in mental health · 2008Article
- Human subjects protection issues in QUERI implementation research: QUERI Series.Implementation science : IS · 2008Article
- Innovations in the Ethical Review of Health-Related Quality Improvement and Research: The Alberta Research Ethics Community Consensus Initiative (ARECCI).Healthcare policy = Politiques de sante · 2007Article
- When does quality improvement count as research? Human subject protection and theories of knowledge.Quality & safety in health care · 2004Article
- Primary care practice-based research networks: working at the interface between research and quality improvement.Annals of family medicineReview
- Beyond Research Ethics: Novel Approaches of 3 Major Public Health Institutions to Provide Ethics Input on Public Health Practice Activities.Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Historically, quality assurance studies have received scant ethical attention. The advent of information systems capable of supporting research-grade continuous quality improvement projects demands that we clearly define how these projects differ from research and when they require external review. The ethical obligation for the performance of quality assurance projects, with its emphasis on identifiable immediate action for a served population, is a critical distinction. The obligation to perform continuous quality improvement is a deliverable of the social contract entered into implicitly by patients and health care providers and systems. In this article, the authors review the ethical framework that requires these studies, evaluate the differences between quality assurance studies and classic research, and propose criteria for requiring external review.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.