Flow Charting. Flow charts can be customized to fit any need or purpose.

They are very unique

in any quality improvement method.
This activity involves completing a webquest to find an organizational flow chart that
demonstrates a specific purpose. Provide the URL of the website where the flow chart was found,
a 2 paragraph summary describing the website's content, purpose, process of flow chart, etc.
Make sure you are specific in the description of the flow chart purpose. Provide additional
resources/citations.
Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is a system wide program used to integrate
quality assurance, quality control and assessment. 1 CQI seeks to evaluate and
improve existing systems in order to identify and avoid errors as well as maximize
efficiency. One important tool useful to CQI is the evaluation of systems through the
use of flow charts. Flow charts enable the assessment of processes and their
limitations using visual relationships. An example of a flow chart is the Breast Pain
in a Non-Lactating Women flow chart found on the Vermont Department of Healths
Ladies First web site at
http://ladiesfirstproviders.vermont.gov/sites/ladiesfirst/files/algorithms/breastcare/6.BreastPain.png.2

The purpose of the Vermont Department of Healths Ladies First web site is to help
identify risks and cancers in women at their earliest stages by providing Vermont
screening, diagnostic, case management and treatment guidelines. 2 The purpose of
this flow chart is to provide a clear and easy to follow algorithm for assessing breast
pain found for non-lactating women. A key step in the process is diagnostic imaging
evaluation, yet as the flow chart depicts not all women will need to have diagnostic
imaging evaluation. Depending on the results of the flow chart, the patient may
need to be referred for biopsy, may need to be referred to a specialist, or may only
need to follow routine screening guidelines. The flow chart in this example is a
powerful tool for enabling a complex process to be easily understood and
implemented.
1 Lenards N. Continuous Quality Improvement. [Softchalk]. La Crosse, WI: UW-L
Medical Dosimetry Program; 2011.
2 Vermont Department of Health. Breast Care.
http://ladiesfirstproviders.vermont.gov/breast-care/cycle/algorithms Web site.
Accessed December 1st, 2015.