Nolan T, Provost L. Understanding variation. Quality Progress. 1990; 70-78.

A lucid and brief introduction to modern statistical approaches to improvement, including statistical process control.

Nolan T. Understanding medical systems. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1998;128(4):293-298.

This paper explores the nature of medical systems and develops ideas for their proper application to medicine and the activities of physicians.

Nelson E, Splaine M, Batalden P, Plume S. Building measurement and data collection into medical practice. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1998;128(16).

One of the biggest challenges for improvement is collecting and using data to assess results. This article describes a sound method for integrating a reasonable amount of data collection into everyday practice.

Mosser G. Clinical process improvement: Engage first, measure later. Quality Management in Health Care. 1996;4(4):11-20.

A description of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a standing collaboration of 18 medical groups in Minnesota, USA.

Lynn J, Schall M, Milne C, Nolan KM, Kabcenell A. Quality improvements in end of life care: Insights from two collaboratives. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. 2000;26(5):254-267.

This article includes results from two quality improvement collaboratives: the 1997 End-of-Life IHI Breakthrough Series Collaborative with 47 teams and the 1999 Congestive Heart Failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease End-of-Life IHI Breakthrough Series Collaborative with 34 teams.

Lundberg G, Wennberg J. Editorial: A new proposal and a call to action. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1997;278:1615-1616.

An eloquent call for new, market area health care reforms, based on scientific information on variation in care and quality.

Lomas J, Enkin M, Anderson G. Opinion leaders vs. audit and feedback to implement practice guidelines. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). 1991;265(17):2202-2207.

A randomized controlled trial with 76 physicians in 16 community hospitals evaluated audit and feedback and local opinion leader education as methods of encouraging compliance with a guideline for management of women with a previous cesarean section.

Leape LL, Kabcenell AI, Gandhi TK, Carver P, Nolan TW, Berwick D. Reducing adverse drug events: Lessons from a Breakthrough Series collaborative. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. 2000;26(6):321-331.

This article relates the details of one of the IHI Breakthrough Series Collaboratives and has some very important ideas about success and failure in collaborative improvement work.

Kosseff AL, Niemeier S. SSM Health Care clinical collaboratives: Improving the value of patient care in a health care system. Joint Commission Journal on Quality Improvement. 2001 Jan;27(1):5-19.

A description of the SSM Health Care collaborative model and a discussion of successes and failures in collaborative team projects.

Kilo C, Kabcenell A, Berwick D. Beyond survival: Toward continuous improvement in medical care. New Horizons. 1998;6(1):3-11.

A description of the IHI Breakthrough Series with a table providing sample results from the Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Reducing Costs and Improving Outcomes in Adult Intensive Care.