BioMed Central Blog
Quality Enhancement Research Initiative series published by Implementation Science
The
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Quality Enhancement Research Initiative
(QUERI) is a series of articles currently being published in Implementation Science.
The series is edited by the journal’s Editors-in-Chief Brian S Mittman and
Martin P Eccles, along with Cheryl B Stetler, Joseph Francis and Ian Graham.
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) was established to improve the quality of VA healthcare through the use of research-derived best practices. QUERI was created within the context of an internationally recognized transformation of the VA's healthcare delivery system. This transformation had at its core a "quality improvement lens" and involved a major redesign of organizational structures and policies, including implementation of innovative information technology and a new performance management/accountability program.
Key elements of the QUERI Program include a set of disease or problem-focused QUERI Centers, a core set of program-wide goals, and a complex 6-step framework, or "process" that guides each Center's activities. Overall, each QUERI Center aims to create a structured program of implementation research and new implementation research findings and insights.
The QUERI Series opens with an overview, describing the QUERI program, its operational QUERI Centers, and its key, overarching Frameworks. Articles that primarily represent QUERI Centers’ work then follow. These articles focus on a range of QUERI implementation research approaches, implementation study issues and needs, implementation barriers and enabling factors at both micro and macro levels, and illustrative cases demonstrating the use of various implementation tools including the core 6-step process. Cumulatively, the series describes a broad array of implementation research challenges, as well as potential approaches explored by QUERI researchers to meet those challenges. The commentaries at the end of the series provide reflections on the potential value of QUERI and its related approaches from the perspective of both VA (non-QUERI) leadership and non-VA stakeholders.
A number of articles in the series have already been published and can be browsed on the journal’s website. Further articles will be published in the coming months, so to keep up to date why not register to receive article alerts when new research is published?
Posted by Alison Cobb at 13:58 Comments (0)
