Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

All of us at Western are dedicated to providing the best in quality care to each and every one of our patients.

Specifically, our Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) committee meets quarterly to review various areas of our clinic, from review of clinical policies and procedures to the tone of voice we use in talking with our clients. 

Our CQI goals allow us to:

• Examine the services we provide to continue to be a center for excellence
• Review how we care for our clients and how we interact with our clients.  We want to be the clinic that exceeds your expectations!
• Flexibility.  We want to always be open for change, for:
• Improvement
• Enhancement
• New service opportunities
• Listen.  We want to consistently listen to our clients, to you, and to each other. 

Our CQI committee is comprised of a physician representative, department supervisors, volunteers from our staff, as well as our administrator.  Some of the items our CQI committee continuously oversees include:

• Chart reviews
• For clinical accuracy
• For transcription accuracy
• For coding accuracy
• Patient Satisfaction Surveys
• In office surveys
• Web surveys
• Compliance education for our staff
• HIPAA Privacy and Security
• Education
• Review
• Update (for clients and staff)
• Monthly educational inservices for staff!  We try to provide a medical or safety seminar each month for our staff.  There are also continuing education units where applicable.
• Clinic walk-through.  Periodically we ask a volunteer group of employees to be a ‘patient for a day’.  These volunteers follow the path of a patient, observing and listening to their surroundings.  The data gathered is reviewed by the CQI committee for awareness of our physical surroundings (are there items out of place?) and privacy (are we speaking softly enough?) as well as other observations that could improve our helpfulness and efficiency.
• Special projects.  Each of our CQI members takes on a special project where our goal is to either review an existing policy, procedure or service and make recommendations for improvement or develop an evaluation form for a new service.