Increasing Capacity for Quality Improvement in Underresourced Primary Care Settings

While hospitals have widely adopted quality improvement (QI) initiatives, primary care practices continue to face unique challenges to QI implementation. The purpose of this article is to outline a strategy for promoting QI in primary care practices by introducing specially trained nurses. Two case examples are described, one with a QI nurse external to the practice and one with a nurse internal to the practice. Lessons learned and barriers and facilitators to QI in primary care are presented. Barriers and facilitators are identified in the following categories: practice infrastructure, practice leadership, and practice organizational culture. Implications for primary care practitioners and avenues for future work are discussed.