CLINICAL QUALITY AWARDS

CLINICAL QUALITY AWARDS

College of Medicine and Self-Insurance Program offering new grants

The UF College of Medicine Office of Continuing Medical Education and the UF Health Science Center Self-Insurance Program have announced their newly developed co-sponsorship of an integrated Clinical Quality Award Program. It provides start-up support for College of Medicine and Health Science Center faculty and Shands staff in Gainesville and Jacksonville to design and implement educational projects focused on clinical quality, patient safety and clinical process improvement. A particular focus of the grant program is to support projects that are directed at advancing Institute for Healthcare Improvement or Joint Commission quality initiatives, University HealthSystem Consortium quality measures, Physician Quality Reporting System quality reporting metrics or National Quality Forum quality initiatives.

Project requirements

CQA-funded projects must plan and implement clinical education and process improvement initiatives designed to directly improve patient safety and/or clinical processes in either outpatient or inpatient settings including Shands at UF, Shands Jacksonville or the University of Florida faculty practices in Gainesville or Jacksonville. Proposals should focus on projects directed at improving performance related to quality measures that are publicly reported or part of national quality campaigns, as described in the introduction. Supported projects should have a strong improvement implementation plan. Primary data gathering or hypothesis-generating proposals are unlikely to be funded. Proposals should include a plan for evaluating the impact of the educational intervention and process improvement effort on the relevant measure. Projects must include a UF CME-accredited educational program. Priority will be given to proposals that address one or more of the 2011-2012 quality goals.

Additional consideration will be given to applications that include the following features:

  • Interdisciplinary components including physicians, residents, nurses and other health care workers
  • Applicable across the educational continuum including faculty, resident, student and postgraduate continuing medical education components
  • Expected to result in publication, poster presentation or other scholarly activity
  • Demonstration of how the project will be sustained after completion of the support and spread successful processes or other locations
  • Likely to serve as a foundation for further funded research

Most CQA project grants have been for amounts of $25,000 or less over the life of the project. In special circumstances, consideration will be given to requests for larger amounts. Projects will last up to 18 months. Grants must be submitted using the CQA application. Please visit the SIP website at Flbog.sip.ufl.edu to download the CQA application.

For more information, please call Laura Gruber at 265-8309 or email grubela@ufl.edu , or call Rebecca Graves at 273-7006 or email gravesr@ufl.edu.