The AAAHC Institute for Quality improvement is pleased to announce the winners of the sixth annual “Innovations in Quality Improvement Award."

The winner in the Primary Care category is the National College Depression Partnership, a national quality improvement project for depression identification and care of college students.  The project was submitted by Dr. Henry Chung, the Associate Vice President of Student Health at New York University.

The winner in the Surgical Procedural category is “Cipro Reactions and Use of a Penicillin Algorithm,” a study of antibiotic selection for patients who report a previous penicillin reaction.  The study was submitted by Lynn Watts, RN, Performance Improvement Coordinator of the Delaware Surgery Center, LLC.

These winners exceeded the criteria listed below:

1) Importance of the quality issue addressed
a. prevalence,
b. incidence,
c. cost,
d. variation in practice from recognized norms

2) Clarity of the description of
a. the discovery of quality issue,
b. involvement/recruitment of organizational staff/other organizational resources,
c. the development and implementation of intervention,
d. outcome, and,
e. “lessons learned”

3) Evidence of
a. communication of the study findings throughout the organization,
b. quantifiable improvement in value sustained over time,
c. innovative thinking,
d. teamwork;

4) Ability to generalize to other ambulatory health care settings/issues.

These winners will receive their awards and make presentations of their studies at the 2009 AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement’s National Educational Forum for Ambulatory Health Care, December 5 – 6, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.