ReviewInternational journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care2017
Conceptualizing and assessing improvement capability: a review.
Review in International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 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
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Implementing systematic depression screening in primary care: lessons from the MDD Minds global quality improvement pilot.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Quality improvement and workplace wellbeing capacity and capability in Aotearoa New Zealand emergency departments. A nationwide mixed methods survey.International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care · 2025Article
- Article
- Organizational attributes that contribute to the learning & improvement capabilities of healthcare organizations: a scoping review.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Implementation of Business Excellence Models in Healthcare for Quality Assessment: A Systematic Review.Global journal on quality and safety in healthcare · 2023Article
- Article
- Capability building for large-scale transformational change: learning from an evaluation of a national programme.BMJ open quality · 2021Article
- How to be a very safe maternity unit: An ethnographic study.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2019Article
- Fourteen years of quality improvement education in healthcare: a utilisation-focused evaluation using concept mapping.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Identifying and resolving the frustrations of reviewing the improvement literature: The experiences of two improvement researchers.BMJ open quality · 2019Article
- Assessing improvement capability in healthcare organisations: a qualitative study of healthcare regulatory agencies in the UK.International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care · 2018Article
- Improvement capability and performance: a qualitative study of maternity services providers in the UK.International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care · 2018Article
- Why measuring quality of mental health care is still an unmet challenge and how to meet it.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe literature is reviewed to examine how 'improvement capability' is conceptualized and assessed and to identify future areas for research. DATA SOURCES: An iterative and systematic search of the literature was carried out across all sectors including healthcare. The search was limited to literature written in English. DATA EXTRACTION: The study identifies and analyses 70 instruments and frameworks for assessing or measuring improvement capability. Information about the source of the instruments, the sectors in which they were developed or used, the measurement constructs or domains they employ, and how they were tested was extracted. RESULTS OF DATA SYNTHESIS: The instruments and framework constructs are very heterogeneous, demonstrating the ambiguity of improvement capability as a concept, and the difficulties involved in its operationalisation. Two-thirds of the instruments and frameworks have been subject to tests of reliability and half to tests of validity. Many instruments have little apparent theoretical basis and do not seem to have been used widely.
conclusionThe assessment and development of improvement capability needs clearer and more consistent conceptual and terminological definition, used consistently across disciplines and sectors. There is scope to learn from existing instruments and frameworks, and this study proposes a synthetic framework of eight dimensions of improvement capability. Future instruments need robust testing for reliability and validity. This study contributes to practice and research by presenting the first review of the literature on improvement capability across all sectors including healthcare.
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Identifiers
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.