Obstacles to collaborative quality improvement: the case of ambulatory general medical care

Objective. To assess the effectiveness of inter-site collaboration and repo rt-card style feedback of quality measures on quality improvement in the ou tpatient setting and to identify major barriers to improvement. Design. A collaborative quality improvement effort consisting of a large cr oss-sectional data collection effort (chart reviews and patient surveys), f eedback of comparative quality of care data to improvement teams, and colla boration between sites. Setting. Eleven primary care sites in the Boston area. Study participants. Quality improvement teams at each site with physician l eaders. Intervention. Education about techniques of rapid-cycle quality improvement , coaching of on-site teams, and report-card style feedback of comparative site-specific quality of care data. Results. Multiple quality improvement projects were undertaken through this collaboration. However, though we were careful to educate trams on methods of continuous quality improvement and to name specific clinical leaders, t he degree of collaboration and quality improvement fell short of expectatio ns. Major impediments to improvement included lack of team members' time an d resources, lack of incentives, and unempowered team leadership. The prima ry obstacle to collaboration was the diversity of sites and inability of te ams to create interventions that were relevant to other sites. Conclusion. Despite ample quality of care data, quality improvement educati on, and a structured collaborative process, achieving quality improvement i n the ambulatory setting is still a difficult challenge. Organizations need to find ways of overcoming the obstacles faced by improvement teams in ord er to maximize quality improvement.