The Improvement Collaborative: An Approach to Rapidly Improve Health Care and Scale up Quality Services

This report describes the Improvement Collaborative approach as adapted by the USAID-funded Quality Assurance Project and Health Care Improvement Project. The paper draws on the lessons learned in implementing over 35 improvement collaboratives in 14 developing and middle-income countries. It describes seven essential features for the successful implementation of an improvement collaborative and the key activities that occur during each of a collaborative’s phases: the preparatory phase, the implementation/demonstration phase, and the spread phase (2008, 20 pages).

The paper is also available in French.