A recent study shows that hospital administrators are heeding advice to integrate and embrace quality improvement efforts.Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine interviewed 100 directors from a randomly selected cross-section of all acute-care hospitals and compared their responses with those from a similar study performed in 2001. The results show that more than 90 percent of respondents’ hospitals had undergone quality improvement efforts, and 60 percent of respondents reported that these efforts were helpful or very helpful.

“This generally positive view among hospital quality improvement directors concerning quality improvement organization (QIO) interventions suggests that QIOs are potentially poised to take a leading role in promoting quality of care,” the study authors stated in their report.

The new research, published in the March issue of the bimonthly journal Health Services Research, reports that administrators have increasingly sought the counsel of physicians, executives and hospital staff in an effort to improve hospital quality—something earlier researchers had recommended.

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