Introduction
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) workshop “The Conduct of Health Care Quality Improvement and Implementation Research” was held on May 24–25, 2007, in Irvine, CA. The purpose of this workshop was to gain a better understanding of what is known and not known about quality improvement and implementation research. Experts were asked to identify current methods and best practices as well as areas where future efforts should be concentrated to propel the field. As with its previous workshop, the Forum on the Science of Health Care Quality Improvement and Implementation invited speakers from other disciplines to share their experiences in their respective fields. Although many disciplines are relevant to this topic, not all views could be incorporated because of workshop time constraints, but will be incorporated in the forum’s future activities.
The following chapters describe and summarize workshop presentations and discussions. Therefore, the content is limited to the views presented and discussed during the workshop itself and is not intended to be a comprehensive assessment. The broader scope of issues pertaining to this subject area is recognized but could not be addressed in this summary. Appendix A is the workshop agenda and Appendix B contains a list of workshop participants. Speakers were invited to submit written responses prior to the workshop; those are included in Appendix C.
The forum is used by the IOM to convene representatives from
academia, government, and industry. In bringing together this wide group of stakeholders with diverse views, the forum provides a neutral setting where issues related to improving the science behind health care quality improvement and implementation can be discussed. Through their discussions, forum members attain a better understanding of what the needs are and begin crossing the communication barriers that prevent advances in the field.
