Integration of intradisciplinary quality assessment into a multidisciplinary approach.

One challenge for the QA professional in healthcare today is initiating, coordinating, and facilitating QA programs that cross traditional departmental and discipline barriers and bring together multidisciplinary teams. When looking at healthcare from a customer's perspective, the QA professional must not isolate what nursing does for the patient, what the medical staff does for the patient, what pharmacy does for the patient, and so on. The imperative, instead, is to evaluate the healthcare as it truly is perceived and delivered-as a team effort. This article presents one method that uses the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' 10-step model to create an effective multidisciplinary QA program.