Quality improvement as an investment.

Health care organizations are experiencing increasing internal and external pressures to improve the quality of care that they provide. However, there is not a framework that can be used to help understand the value of quality improvement projects and to prioritize competing projects. By understanding the current processes, costs and outcomes of care, enumerating the costs and benefits of change, anticipating the timing of the costs and benefits, and performing a financial analysis, quality improvement efforts can be evaluated as investments. Only by understanding and adapting to the financial environments in which health care organizations operate can continuous quality improvement in health care succeed.