ReviewPostgraduate medical journal2015
How to study improvement interventions: a brief overview of possible study types.
Review in Postgraduate medical journal, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Can quality improvement improve the quality of care? A systematic review of reported effects and methodological rigor in plan-do-study-act projects.BMC health services research · 2019Pooled it
- Using a Quality Improvement Priority Metric to Promote Uniformly High-Quality Care: An Illustrative Example Using Child HCAHPS Survey Data.Journal of patient experience · 2026Article
- Effectiveness and Implementation of Obstetric Triage During Pregnancy and Childbirth: A Systematic Review.Cureus · 2025Review
- The impact of digital art-making on anxiety: a feasibility study.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Profiling and Mapping Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Research Frameworks: Protocol for a Scoping Review to Guide Integration.HRB open research · 2025Article
- Reducing the rate of central line-associated bloodstream infections; a quality improvement project.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Response to patient safety incidents in healthcare settings in Ghana: the role of teamwork, communication openness, and handoffs.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Outcomes in pulmonary sarcoidosis: results of a newly implemented prednisone protocol.Sarcoidosis, vasculitis, and diffuse lung diseases : official journal of WASOG · 2023Article
- Summary of the 2020 AHRQ research meeting on 'advancing methods of implementing and evaluating patient experience improvement using consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems (CAHPS®) surveys'.Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research · 2022Article
- Improving viral load utilisation to enhance care for Kenyan adolescents with HIV.BMJ open quality · 2022Article
- A human factors intervention in a hospital - evaluating the outcome of a TeamSTEPPS program in a surgical ward.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- The Contribution of Artificial Intelligence in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): What Can Eye Health Can Learn From Commercial Industry and Early Lessons From the Application of Machine Learning in Eye Health Programmes.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- A Family-Centered Intervention to Monitor Children's Development in a Pediatric Outpatient Setting: Design and Feasibility Testing.Frontiers in health services · 2021Article
- The impact of implementing a preprinted order form for inpatient management of otherwise healthy children admitted to a tertiary care centre with a diagnosis of bronchiolitis.Paediatrics & child health · 2019Article
- Evaluating the impact of healthcare interventions using routine data.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2019Article
- Observational
- Identifying and resolving the frustrations of reviewing the improvement literature: The experiences of two improvement researchers.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- A framework for learning about improvement: embedded implementation and evaluation design to optimize learning.International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care · 2018Article
- A controlled trial of implementing a complex mental health intervention for carers of vulnerable young people living in out-of-home care: the ripple project.BMC psychiatry · 2016Article
- Communication, Leadership, and Decision-Making in the Neuro-ICU.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
- Reprint of
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Improvement (defined broadly as purposive efforts to secure positive change) has become an increasingly important activity and field of inquiry within healthcare. This article offers an overview of possible methods for the study of improvement interventions. The choice of available designs is wide, but debates continue about how far improvement efforts can be simultaneously practical (aimed at producing change) and scientific (aimed at producing new knowledge), and whether the distinction between the practical and the scientific is a real and useful one. Quality improvement projects tend to be applied and, in some senses, self-evaluating. They are not necessarily directed at generating new knowledge, but reports of such projects if well conducted and cautious in their inferences may be of considerable value. They can be distinguished heuristically from research studies, which are motivated by and set out explicitly to test a hypothesis, or otherwise generate new knowledge, and from formal evaluations of improvement projects. We discuss variants of trial designs, quasi-experimental designs, systematic reviews, programme evaluations, process evaluations, qualitative studies, and economic evaluations. We note that designs that are better suited to the evaluation of clearly defined and static interventions may be adopted without giving sufficient attention to the challenges associated with the dynamic nature of improvement interventions and their interactions with contextual factors. Reconciling pragmatism and research rigour is highly desirable in the study of improvement. Trade-offs need to be made wisely, taking into account the objectives involved and inferences to be made.
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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.