Development of a quality improvement program in a department of ophthalmology

Objective: To design and implement a quality improvement (QI) programme in an academic department of ophthalmology. Design: The six core competencies of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education serve as the model for this programme in an institutional practice. The authors review departmental rates of postoperative infections, unplanned reoperations, intraoperative complications, specific subspecialty postoperative complications and successes, and patient and staff compliments and complaints. Results: The authors describe the structure and evolution of the QI programme in our ophthalmology department. Conclusions: It is possible to implement a structured QI programme in an academic department of ophthalmology. With healthcare oversight increasing, physician self-monitoring of quality of care measures will become even more important.