In this episode, Ian reviews some literature and some questions surrounding the idea of whether quality improvement (QI) projects are just "research lite" or whether they have valid standing in and of themselves apart from research. Many people have written on whether QI is just 'research which doesn't require IRB approval and can't be gneralized,' while others are staunch proponents of the immediacy and primacy of QI initiatives, for various reasons, some of which will be explored in this episode. Ian discusses three primary components of this problem which are interesting to him: 1. QI and research may only differ on the front end regarding human subjects and ethics committees, 2. QI and traditional clinical investigations might be bridged by leveraging implementation science, and 3. generalizability and statistical inference may be the Achille's heel of the QI proponent.
