Full Description
For most people, the main point of access to the health system is through primary health care (PHC). The fundamental premise of primary health care is that all people, everywhere, have the right to receive the appropriate care in their community. Primary health care attends to the majority of a person's health needs throughout their lifetime, including physical, mental and social wellbeing. PHC is people-centred rather than disease-centred. It is a whole-of-society approach that includes health promotion, disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care.
Primary health care and continuous quality improvement: An evidence-based guide provides an accessible contemporary guide on implementing continuous quality improvement (CQI) in PHC settings. The authors draw together two decades of practical experience and established leadership in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Australia to provide guidance for health services and their staff, policymakers, researchers, funders and support organisations in an international context.
Primary health care and continuous quality improvement provides an in-depth understanding of how CQI can be used to strengthen health systems by:
identifying core concepts underpinning CQI in PHC and how CQI can improve health care quality, health equity and population health;
explaining how CQI data is used in a comprehensive approach to PHC to measure quality, and how data is generated and used for improving care;
describing CQI tools and techniques used by PHC teams;
offering guidance in interpreting data and addressing variation in care quality;
providing case studies in maternal health, children's health, mental health and other areas, to describe the application of CQI to improve clinical care;
guiding practitioners on how to collaborate and build data systems for CQI, and strengthen links between communities and PHC services.
Continuous quality improvement is everybody's business, and Primary health care and continuous quality improvement explains the strategic use of CQI at different levels of the health system and across sectors to achieve and sustain large-scale health improvement.
Contents
Foreword
About the authors
Acknowledgements
Use of terms
How to use this book
List of abbreviations
Part I: Core concepts in primary health care and continuous quality improvement
Chapter 1: Primary health care
Chapter 2: Continuous quality improvement
Chapter 3: Adapting continuous quality improvement for primary health care
Part II: Continuous quality improvement data, tools and processes for primary health care
Chapter 4: Evidence to guide and improve care
Chapter 5: Practical tools for CQI in primary health care
Chapter 6: Using CQI cycles, and understanding and presenting data
Chapter 7: Facilitating CQI
Chapter 8: Embedding a culture of CQI
Part III: Using CQI to improve primary health care
Chapter 9: The Audit and Best Practice for Chronic Disease CQI research program
Chapter 10: Improving diabetes care
Chapter 11: Improving preventive health care
Chapter 12: Improving children's health
Chapter 13: Improving maternal health care
Chapter 14: Developing an audit tool to improve youth health care
Chapter 15: Improving mental health and wellbeing care
Chapter 16: Improving cardiovascular health care
Chapter 17: Improving care for acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease
Chapter 18: Improving the quality of care for sexually transmissible infections
Chapter 19: Improving eye health care
Part IV: Strengthening systems for PHC equity
Chapter 20: Multi-level systems approaches
Chapter 21: Centralising respect, equity and justice in health research
Chapter 22: Learning from two decades of CQI research in Indigenous PHC
