Measuring and Tracking Change – COVID‑19
Measurement is central to successful quality improvement (QI), as it provides evidence of change, which can further guide widespread practice and/or health system implementation.
The measurements can include epidemiologic indicators (eg, incidence rates, hospitalization rates, death rates), vaccination rates, and process change indicators (eg, tracking number of 1st and 2nd doses administered, number of vaccines shipped, number of patient registrants and patients on the vaccination waitlist, distribution of educational materials).
Measures can be generated by the IT department (weekly reports), manual chart sampling, or contemporaneous tracking (eg, medical assistant or nurse marks a form for each print educational resource they provide).
In addition, measurements are integral to the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) plan, as early evidence of success shown in a Run Chart can enable recommendations to expand the process to a larger part of the practice or health care system.
Tracking changes from a PDSA plan can be done through a Run Chart (ie, a graph that displays observed data in a time sequence.