Development and assessment of a web-based clinical quality improvement curriculum

Understanding quality improvement (QI) is an important skill for physicians, yet educational interventions focused on teaching QI to residents are relatively rare. Web-based training may be an effective teaching tool in time-limited and expertise-limited settings. We developed a web-based curriculum in QI and evaluated its effectiveness. During the 2011-2012 academic year, we enrolled 53 first-year internal medicine residents to complete the online training. Residents were provided an average of 6 hours of protected time during a 1-month geriatrics rotation to sequentially complete 8 online modules on QI. A pre-post design was used to measure changes in knowledge of the QI principles and self-assessed competence in the objectives of the course. Of the residents, 72% percent (37 of 51) completed all of the modules and pretests and posttests. Immediate pre-post knowledge improved from 6 to 8.5 for a total score of 15 (P < .001) and pre-post self-assessed competence in QI principles on paired t test analysis improved from 1.7 to 2.7 on a scale of 5 for residents who completed all of the components of the course. Web-based training of QI in this study was comparable to other existing non-web-based curricula in improving learner confidence and knowledge in QI principles. Web-based training can be an efficient and effective mode of content delivery.