Goal: To perform a search related to your project to establish what literature already exists & how your work will fit in (to benefit/interest others, etc.)
Identifying published QI reports in the scholarly literature can be rather tricky, largely because available subject headings (for example, "Quality Improvement"[Mesh]) are not reliably applied to these studies by database indexers and author-provided keywords generally highlight the topic of the QI problem being addressed (in order to attract interested readers), not the study type.
Taking advantage of available search filters (also known as search hedges), like the ones listed below designed by librarians at the University of Pittsburgh, can be a huge time saver as applying them can make your search for published QI reports more efficient.
PubMed/MEDLINE - Medical Subject Heading - "Quality Improvement"[Mesh]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh?term=Quality+Improvement
ISSG Search Filters Resource - Quality improvement
https://sites.google.com/a/york.ac.uk/issg-search-filters-resource/home/quality-improvement
University of Pittsburgh, Health Sciences Library System
Quality improvement – OVID Medline Search Filter
https://hsls.libguides.com/Ovid-Medline-search-filters/experimental-studies#s-lg-box-32395726
University of Pittsburgh, Health Sciences Library System
Quality improvement - PubMed Search Filter
https://hsls.libguides.com/PubMed-search-filters/experimental-studies#s-lg-box-32289433
For example, if you were interested in searching for QI studies related to perioperative care in the PubMed database, you could search for "Perioperative Care" AND the QI search filter (University of Pittsburgh, Health Sciences Library) - see:
