TY - JOUR T1 - Starting off on the right foot: providing timely feedback to learners in quality improvement education JF - BMJ Quality & Safety JO - BMJ Qual Saf SP - 263 LP - 266 DO - 10.1136/bmjqs-2021-013251 VL - 31 IS - 4 AU - Amanda L Mayo AU - Brian M Wong Y1 - 2022/04/01 UR - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/31/4/263.abstract N2 - Quality improvement (QI) education, when optimised, can improve both educational and clinical outcomes, often through learner engagement in QI projects.1 2 However, just as in QI work more broadly, it is hard to improve a QI curriculum when learning outcomes are not measured. With the proliferation of QI education programmes, a variety of tools now exist to assess QI knowledge and skill acquisition to enable evaluation of QI education effectiveness. For example, the Beliefs, Attitudes, Skills, and Confidence in Quality Improvement (BASiC-QI) Scale is a self-assessment tool that assesses learner beliefs, skills and confidence towards QI which can be used to monitor the impact of QI education on learners.3 The Quality Improvement Knowledge Application Tool Revised (QIKAT-R) uses scenarios to assess a learner’s ability to propose an aim, a measure and one focused change (three key elements of the Model for Improvement) that address the system-level issue raised for each of the scenarios.4 The Mayo Evaluation of Reflection on Improvement (MERIT) Tool reviews learner reflections on QI problems of merit and opportunities for improvement with consideration of personal and system-level factors.5 Tools specifically aimed at assessing learner competencies in QI project proposal design and completion have also been developed; these include the Quality Improvement Proposal Assessment Tool (QIPAT-7),6 the Quality Improvement Project Evaluation Report (QIPER)7 and the Multi-Domain Assessment Tool for Quality Improvement projects (MAQIP).8 All of the above tools have variable intent and use in different QI educational contexts. None was specifically developed for Lean Six Sigma methodology education efforts, despite frequent use of this approach in many healthcare sectors.9 In this issue of BMJ Quality & Safety, Myers and colleagues report on the development and validation of a novel tool to assess the skills of learners to use the … ER -