A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people with common interest and/or purpose that work together over a period of time and communicate with each other knowledge and experience.

Each CoP utilizes several modes of communication to share knowledge. These include but may not be limited to the following:

• E-mail lists
• Teleconferences
• Face-to-Face meetings: coinciding with national conferences

Communities of Practice facilitated by the Performance Improvement QIOSC include

• Internal Quality Control (IQC) CoP
  a place for sharing information and ideas related to measuring processes and outcomes through internal quality control measures.
• Process Improvement/Collaborative CoP
  a place for sharing information related to performance improvement methodologies and Collaboratives. This community includes participants from all settings who are conducting or plan to conduct a performance improvement project, including a Breakthrough Series Collaborative.

*All Communities of Practice are for QIO staff

What is a Collaborative?
A Collaborative is a systematic approach to healthcare quality improvement in which organizations and providers test and measure practice innovations, then share their experiences in an effort to accelerate learning and widespread implementation of best practices.

In 1995, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) held the first BTS Collaborative.

For each Collaborative, teams attend three learning sessions, followed by action periods.

During the learning sessions, participants are provided with instruction in theory and practice of improving performance in a specific clinical or operational area of focus. At each session, teams report on activities, methods, and results surrounding improvement efforts.

During the action periods, participants work hard to make their changes a reality. To further collaboration, the action periods are supplemented with daily e-mail communications, monthly progress reports, and teleconference.