There is a longstanding history of Quality Improvement work by residents at the University of New Mexico, one that has been continued with the recent publication of the Fifth Annual Journal of Quality Improvement in Healthcare. As the front line of care for patients at UNM, the residents have continuously worked over recent years to improve QI education and patient safety standards within the hospital and the community.

Using the $20,000 QI fund negotiated between CIR and UNM, residents have collaborated with the hospital on a number of resident-initiated QI projects, including the annual publication of this journal which presents a roundup of Quality Improvement education on the whole as well as QI projects done by residents at UNM and other hospitals around the country.

Projects addressed a variety of areas of medical care, addressing such topics as health literacy, resident counseling and postpartum vaccination, reducing unnecessary patient transfers, community-based cardiovascular risk reduction programs, and more.

The landscape of medicine has always been characterized by rapid change. Much of this change has been driven by procedural based interventions and diagnostic innovations. Over the last decade, increasing costs without an increase in quality of patient centered outcomes has forced care systems to focus on quality measures and innovations in patient safety.

The mission of the UNM CIR Quality Journal is to serve as a resource for resident and medical student quality and safety projects. This year we welcome several project submissions from programs outside of UNM. The projects in the journal represent innovative community based interventions focused on improving social determinants of health and hospital based quality projects.

The Journal of Quality Improvement in Healthcare’s editorial board:

• Christoper T. Bunn, DO – Department of Cardiology
• Elizabeth Snyder, MD – Department of Internal Medicine
• Alison Duncan, MD – Department of Psychiatry