THE AFFINITY BETWEEN CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AND EPIDEMIC SURVEILLANCE

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the close affinity between the continuous quality improvement (CQI) concept of monitoring a process for the introduction of special causes and epidemic surveillance. DESIGN: A case study of a CQI tool for infection control epidemic surveillance. SETTING AND PATIENTS: A 668-bed acute care hospital with 5 intensive care units supporting heart, liver transplant, and trauma teams. The infection control department consists of 2.5 full-time employee nurse epidemiologists and a medical director who is an infectious disease specialist. RESULTS: The outbreak investigation illustrates principles of CQI and their relationship to epidemic surveillance through the use of applied statistical methods. CONCLUSIONS: The expanding role of hospital epidemiology is enhanced by applying CQI concepts to improving health care. The application of epidemiologic tools and principles to the problems of nosocomial infections is strongly connected to the CQI concept of using dependable data to improve processes.