Quality Improvement

Quality improvement (QI) is an integral part of pediatric emergency medicine fellowship education. Using a longitudinal curriculum, fellows will be expected to complete a rigorous QI project of their own design during their three-year fellowship. Fellows will be trained early in their first year on the use of Lean methodology, which is used throughout the UMass health system. Lean methodology provides a systematic framework to approach patient care and quality issues and identify solutions to enact positive change. Fellows will be encouraged to identify an area for improvement, and then subsequently devise a plan to approach the problem using Lean methodology. Multiple members of the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine are Lean trained and in addition to their own QI work, serve as QI mentors to fellows and residents. The division also hosts a monthly QI working group where projects are vetted and reviewed in a collegial group setting. At the end of fellowship, trainees will have a solid foundation upon which they can continue build their QI experience and skills to enact change with the goal of continuous improvement to patient care.