User-friendly CQI for the mental health care team.

Past efforts in continuous quality improvement (CQI) have focused on the rigor of CQI indicators and the reliability of data collection, with little consideration about organizational characteristics of the team required to carry out the CQI plan. It is crucial that evaluators who set up CQI procedures for inpatient mental health care consider characteristics of the treatment team responsible for carrying out CQI recommendations. In this article, the authors discuss a paradigm for user-friendly CQI based on program development efforts made in Illinois State Hospitals.