Clinical Quality Assurance and Improvement (QA/QI)

Cascade's Clinical Operations Division works in conjunction with our management team, operations staff and clients to constantly assess and redefine quality to provide both quality assurance and improvement. Our Clinical Operations staff include Clinical Educators and Directors that focus on QA/QI, certification curriculum development, manage our CE/CME training programs and insure client satisfaction, total cost effectiveness and patient outcome improvement.

Our clinical Operations division manages multiple patient care and outcomes focused committees including:

• Multidisciplinary Clinical Advisory Board
• Physician Advisors
• Customer Advisory Committee

In conjunction with our operations team, our Clinical staff work with our clients to develop specialty training curriculums, competency based education courses, and interface with associations and curriculum providers to insure compliance with clinical standards and program administration guidelines.

The three distinct focus areas assessed to define quality are:

• Structure: Physical equipment and facilities
• Process: How our systems work (including Faculty)
• Outcome: Client/Student Satisfaction and Patient Outcomes

Our Quality Improvement initiatives involve both prospective and retrospective reviews. It is aimed at improvement; measuring where we are, and figuring out ways to make things better. These initiatives involve all aspects of our training operations including Instructor recruitment/training, client satisfaction, certification curriculum development, training curriculum delivery, and science/evidence based content.

Instructors go through a rigorous screening process. When we train new instructors we do a needs assessment with each new candidate. We teach to the curriculum standards but tailor each course to address the identified Instructor Candidate's specific needs. Those needs may include a better grasp of the subject matter components such as pharmacology, resuscitation, science, etc. and also advanced techniques in education. Because the Instructor Candidate needs vary, so does the instructor development.

Ongoing Instructor evaluations are done at random and all course evaluations are reviewed regularly for all Faculty. Course Directors and Faculty include Physicians, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Mobile Intensive Care Paramedics, ICU/ER/Pediatric/Cath Lab Nurses, Critical Care Transport/Flight Nurses, Emergency Medical Technicians/Firefighters, and First Responder Technical Rescue Personnel. All faculty are current or retired clinicians/providers with years of experience in their specialty and are required to have provided the skills related to the curriculum they teach in clinical practice.