Quality and Safety in Women’s Health

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (the College) is devoted to serving as a strong advocate for quality health care for women and maintaining the highest standards of clinical and continuing education for its members. In 2000, the College published Quality Improvement in Women's Health Care, which joined a long line of publications developed by the college to inform and assist Fellows who participate in peer review and quality improvement activities. This 2nd edition, is intended to seve as a primer for obstetricians and gynecologists starting or managing quality improvement programs within their hospital departments or ambulatory practices by focusing on the following areas: Quality and safety in the inpatient setting -- Clinical competence -- Quality and safety in the outpatient setting, The manual is presented in five parts. Part 1 provides background information of the evolution of health care quality improvement effort. Part 2 provides an overview of quality and safety leadership roles in community hospitals and residency programs and patient safety initiatives. Some information may be adapted for use in the ambulatory setting. Part 3 addresses the issues of assessing clinical competence, one of the key elements of any quality improvement program and certainly a major responsibility for chairpersons of obstetrics and gynecology departments. Part 4 addresses quality and patient safety issues in the outpatient setting. Part 5 covers tools that can be used to analyze data or study management issues. Provided in the appendixes are resources that include the 2009 Report of the Presidential Task Force on patient Safety in the Office Setting and the World Health Organization's Surgical Safety Checklist. It is hoped that this publications will complement the guidelines documents, Practice Bulletins, and Committee Opinions from the College and jointly serve as the foundation for continuous quality improvement and evidence-based practices in obstetrics and gynecology.