A Tall Order: Improve Child Health
Academic Pediatrics
Abstract
In the short span of a decade, quality improvement (QI) has gone from a marginal activity undertaken by a few eccentric innovators in child health to an activity at the core of major pediatric teaching hospitals, integrated delivery systems, and professional organizations. Moreover, the evaluation of improvement activities and the development of new methods to do so has become a fertile and increasingly popular area of academic research, with the pediatric health services research community in the forefront as evidenced by the Academic Pediatrics Association’s (APA) highly successful conference on QI research conducted in conjunction with the Pediatric Academic Societies meetings. The conference is now a core program of the APA. This expanding interest makes this an opportune time to reflect on the direction of these activities, to see if early course adjustments in the vector of our efforts can increase the likelihood that these activities achieve our common goal: better health for children, their families, our communities, and our nation.