Performance and Process Improvement Flashcards
7 cards from real CPHQ practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Performance and Process Improvement flashcards as text
A quality team is evaluating a new fall prevention protocol. After implementation, they want to determine if the improvement is sustained over 18 months. The BEST tool to monitor this is:
Answer: Control chart
Control charts track process performance over time and can detect whether improvements are sustained or if the process has shifted or regressed.
The 'Define' phase of DMAIC primarily involves:
Answer: Clearly articulating the problem, scope, and project goals
The Define phase establishes the project charter, problem statement, scope, goals, and stakeholders before data collection begins.
In a healthcare setting, 'process capability' refers to:
Answer: The ability of a process to consistently produce outputs within specified limits
Process capability measures how well a stable process performs relative to its specification limits, often expressed as Cp or Cpk indices.
A quality improvement team identifies that patients frequently misunderstand discharge instructions. Using the '5 Whys' technique, they ask 'why' repeatedly. This method is BEST suited for:
Answer: Drilling down to the root cause of a problem through iterative questioning
The 5 Whys is a root cause analysis technique that iteratively asks 'why' to move from symptoms to underlying root causes of a problem.
Which of the following BEST describes 'common cause variation' in a healthcare process?
Answer: Inherent, random variation that is expected within a stable process
Common cause variation is the natural, random variability inherent in any stable process and cannot be attributed to a specific assignable cause.
An organization implements a new sepsis bundle protocol. Three months later, sepsis mortality drops significantly. To confirm the improvement was caused by the bundle and not an external factor, the team should:
Answer: Use a control group or interrupted time series analysis to attribute causation
Rigorous evaluation methods such as control groups or interrupted time series analysis help distinguish the effect of the intervention from confounding factors or temporal trends.
In the context of CPHQ exam domains, 'benchmarking' is used in performance improvement to:
Answer: Compare an organization's performance against best-in-class standards or peers
Benchmarking compares an organization's processes and outcomes to those of high-performing peers or national standards to identify performance gaps and improvement opportunities.