Practice Quality Improvement

During the first three months of the program, residents identify a project they would like to develop and form a team composed of the resident, a faculty physician, technologists and/or nurses.

• Responsible for helping to identify the problem and ways to study the problem and potential solutions
• Recruits appropriate technologist/nursing expertise and collaborates with those people to perform the improvement initiative
• Documents each step of the way
• Creates and presents a poster during the annual University of Minnesota Radiology Research Symposium outlining their project

• Helps the resident/team leader to identify a problem, ways to study the problem/solution and the technologist/nurse with expertise in that area
• Reviews and critiques work produced by the resident
• Technical expert with means to effect a change
• Provides feedback to the resident and faculty during the project development phase
• Collaborates with the resident to complete the project/solution

Communication takes place via email and verbally in meetings and over the phone. The PQI Development Form is a written form of communication completed at the outset by the resident and reviewed by the faculty. It is used by all parties as a road-map while completing the project. Finally, the project is summarized in a poster which educates others in the department during the Annual Research Symposium. At the end of the Symposium, a winner is chosen for the best PQI project of the year.