Table 8 Key questions to be answered in the EwQI self evaluations
Q 1. Background | • Why was this project needed? • Why did you think that your approach would be effective? • Did you consider other approaches? If so why were these rejected? • What was the project team's understanding of the self-evaluation and its purpose? Did this change during the project? |
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Q 2. Process – what improvement intervention was introduced to whom and how? | • What did the project team do? • Who did they involve? • How were these activities evaluated? |
Q 3. Outputs | • What did these activities produce? • How were these outputs evaluated? |
Q 4. Who did what | • Who was involved in designing, implementing and evaluating the project? What was their contribution? |
Q 5. Outcomes – did the project work? | What did these activities achieve in terms of: • Measurable improvements in patient care • Increase in the levels of professional engagement in QI • Increase in the capacity and infrastructure for QI in the professional bodies involved in the project • Increase in the knowledge base • Sustainable arrangements for improving quality of care in this field of medicine? How were these changes measured? |
Q 6. What difference did the project make? | • The EwQI is only one of a number of initiatives currently addressing quality improvement in the UK health system generally and in particular specialties, how much difference was really made by the project itself in the context of all this other work? |
Q 7. What are the cost consequences of the project? | • Without attempting to provide a monetary value to the outcomes of the project, how much did the project cost in real terms and with what benefits? Could this have been achieved more easily in other ways? |
Q 8. Why did the project work? | • Factors that helped/hindered • How were clinicians and patient groups engaged and with what consequences? • What were the key ways of bringing about change (e.g. repeat audit, training, information provision) and how well did these work? • Could the project be seen to have worked for some people but not for others? |
Q 9. What arrangements are in place to ensure the sustainability of the project's work? | • How might the result of the project 'fit' with wider changes (e.g. in the professions, funding, training, organisational context)? |