Video Transcript: Why Should We Care About Quality Improvement?*

Dr. Mike Evans, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, St. Michael's Hospital

So, I suppose the first question is, “Why should you or I care about quality improvement?” I mean, to be honest, it sounds a bit boring — something a CEO would have on her or his corporate objectives. But, actually, if you dig a little deeper, it’s pretty cool. [It’s] maybe more of a philosophy or an attitude about how to make something better.

And, now that I think about it, it’s really the attitude that I’m looking for in my patients. The ability and desire to tweak their habits — seeing if this change improves their life and, if it does, try and make it standard practice.

You see, for my patients to make these changes requires skills, but it’s also an outlook. The humility and self-awareness to say, “I’ve got room for improvement.” The ability to gather better approaches, try them on, and see if they work and then adapt them until they do.

Well, if my patients can do that, I think they deserve the same from us in the health care business.

So I suppose the next question is, “If we have the attitude, how do we actually improve? How do we use QI to make care better?”

*Excerpt from “Dr. Mike Evans Video: An Illustrated Look at Quality Improvement in Health Care”