Progress toward reliable, effective and efficient continuous quality improvement (CQI) will be more rapid if supported by a sophisticated CQI scientific field. A consensus finding conference of key stakeholders in quality improvement will provide much needed input for research and practice. The 1.5 day meeting is planned for August 05 and 06 2009 and will take place at RAND, Santa Monica, CA. The meeting is part of an ongoing initiative that uses rigorous scientific evidence review, in combination with established sets of quality criteria, to identify and assess current scientific publications on CQI. Our objective is to engage an evidence review panel comprised of influential expert stakeholders to achieve consensus on a checklist of key features (the minimum quality criteria set, or MQCS) that, when incorporated into CQI manuscripts, will indicate acceptable study and manuscript quality. The MQCS will thus be useful for writing, reviewing, and assessing CQI studies. While the focus of the checklist is on publication, we expect CQI practitioners to use it for planning data collection. The MQCS will thus serve as an important link bridging CQI science and practice. In preparation for this meeting we will develop and validate strategies for the identification of CQI studies, and contrast definitions of CQI. Established quality criteria will be identified and applied to a representative sample of articles that empirically evaluate CQI interventions. This will document the level of adherence to these criteria and facilitate analysis of the relationship between criteria and study outcomes. The findings will support the consensus finding process for the selection of essential quality criteria captured by the MQCS. We will apply consensus finding techniques that have led to many successful outcomes of RAND evidence review panels in the past. Funding is already in place for the extensive preparation for this important and influential meeting. The meeting deliverable is the MQCS checklist. Further deliverables are validated electronic search strategies for identifying CQI literature;screening and assessment tools;publications on the searches, the level of adherence to the MQCS criteria in current literature and the relationships between quality criteria and CQI study outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Other Project Information, line item 7: Quality improvement intervention practitioners and evaluators seek to improve public health by engaging healthcare organizations and their providers in developing and implementing better approaches to care delivery. This project aims to establish a checklist of key features that, when incorporated into evaluations, will indicate acceptable study and publication quality which in turn will help to assess the existing evidence and allow recommendations to improve public health. A meeting with influential experts and stakeholders and contemporary consensus finding methods are necessary to achieve useful criteria.