Quality & Safety Process Improvement Project Funding Fall 2022

Dear colleagues:

The Department of Internal Medicine is pleased to again announce the availability of funds for process improvement (PI) projects in Quality and Safety (Q&S). A total of $50,000 will be available to support 4-6 projects selected through a competitive mechanism.

Selected projects will meet the following criteria:

1. Projects will be in the general field of Quality and Safety. Examples of covered areas include (but are not restricted to) patient experience, communication with patients and families, patient outcomes, medication safety, safe hand-offs and transitions of care, diagnostic error, treatment error, patient access/flow, equitability of care delivery, social determinants of health, employee safety, and provider experience.
2. Projects may be in the ambulatory, inpatient, or care transition spaces, and may be primarily based in a section, program, or inpatient firm. Collaborative projects across sections, programs or firms may also be submitted.
3. The timeline for execution and completion of the project should be within 12 months.
4. Projects must have a plan for sustainability within the section/program/firm. In addition, the results (or any “deliverables”) from each PI project must be generalizable to other sections/programs/firms of the Department of Medicine.

Application process:

1. Our goal is to make the application process simple. Therefore, each project should be submitted using the standard application form (see Word document in related links on the left hand side of the article) with strict word limits. The application has embedded instructions.
2. Project Leads must hold a faculty appointment in the Department of Internal Medicine.
3. Project Leads should inform their sectional Clinical Chief of their intent to submit a project to avoid duplicative projects from the same section.
4. Budget is limited to $15,000 per project.
5. Submission deadline: Projects must be sent via email to Dr. Aldo Peixoto, Vice Chair for Q&S (c/o Roberta Biceglia, Roberta.biceglia@yale.edu) no later than 5PM on Monday November 7, 2022.
6. Projects will be graded by a review panel with expertise in Q&S process improvement projects. The selection committee will rank projects using a weighted scoring system containing 6 domains (Innovation/impact 20%; Methodology 30%; Advancement of Health Equity (15%); Feasibility 10%; Sustainability 15%; and Generalizability 10%).
7. Selected projects will be announced in late December 2022 with disbursement of funds shortly thereafter.

We look forward to another round of wonderful applications!

With our warmest wishes,

Gary V. Desir, MD
Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine
Vice Provost, Faculty Development and Diversity
Chair, Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine
Chief, Internal Medicine, Yale New Haven Hospital

Aldo Peixoto, MD
Professor of Medicine (Nephrology)
Vice-Chair, Quality & Safety, Department of Internal Medicine