Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

Evangelical Community Hospital's CQI Mission Statement

Evangelical Community Hospital is committed to continuous evaluation and improvement of the processes we use to provide quality health care that meets the needs and exceeds the expectations of our community.

What is CQI?

CQI is a strategic approach to providing the best health care possible. It is a preventive strategy that uses constant innovation to improve work processes and systems by reducing time-consuming, low-value activities. Time that was once spent on rework and crisis management is now spent on planning, coordination and control.

Important to Evangelical

CQI is a team approach. It's a new and different way of doing things at Evangelical. Through CQI, the people directly involved in the day-to-day responsibilities of each department evaluate and improve their individual work processes. With a single goal in mind, each employee makes judgments and implements changes using the tools and techniques of CQI. That goal is to improve the overall quality of the care we provide.

Important to the Community

CQI helps us build effective health care services and programs around the needs of the people we serve. More importantly, it gives you peace of mind in knowing that a strong medical resource is nearby. Our focus on quality care also gives us flexibility in today's challenging and complex economic climate, and it helps us be proactive in meeting tomorrow's demands. No one knows what health care will be like in the future. But one thing is certain: change. Through efforts such as these, Evangelical will continue to live up to the expectations of the community that helped create it.

How CQI Works

Through a specific process, we analyze, measure and improve the way our care is administered. All areas of hospital service are assessed. When a problem or opportunity for improvement is identified, a team of employees clearly defines the issue, collects data and information, identifies possible solutions, implements a change and continues to measure to see if the change made an improvement. This process ensures that every individual is striving for our goal of Excellence Every Day.

Who makes CQI work?

In a CQI environment, everyone in the organization (staff, managers, physicians, volunteers) is responsible for helping to make quality improvements. Our leaders and managers drive the CQI effort by their complete commitment and involvement in learning what is best for and expected from the patients. They also help the various Hospital employees make those expectations a reality.

Front-line employees, such as nurses, technicians and nutritional service staff, work day-to-day with all the systems and processes in the Hospital. They have a tremendous responsibility to act on any problems and strive to find improvements in the work they perform.