• Andrea Charbonneau, Victoria Parker, Mark Meterko, Amy K Rosen, Boris Kader, Richard R Owen, Arlene S Ash, Jeffrey Whittle, and Dan R Berlowitz.
• Division of General and Geriatric Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. acharbonneau@kumc.edu
• Am J Manag Care. 2004 Nov 1;10(11 Pt 2):846-51.

ObjectiveTo explore the relationship of systemwide continuous quality improvement (CQI) with depression care quality in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).Study DesignObservational study using data from 2 VHA studies.Patients And MethodsThe Depression Care Quality Study (DCQS) was a retrospective cohort study of depression care quality in the northeastern United States involving 12 678 patients cared for at 14 VHA facilities; it used guideline-based process measures (ie, dosage and duration adequacy). The VHA CQI survey was a cross-sectional survey of systemwide CQI among a representative sample of VHA hospitals; it assessed CQI and organizational culture (OC) at 116 VHA hospitals nationwide and provided data on the 14 study facilities. We used analysis of variance to identify differences in the adequacy of depression care among these facilities. Pearson's correlation was used to identify the relationship of CQI and OC with facility-level depression care adequacy.ResultsMean depression care adequacy differed among the 14 DCQS facilities (P < .0001). Overall dosage adequacy was 90% (range: 87%-92%). Overall duration adequacy was 45% (range: 39%-64%). There was no correlation between CQI and either dosage adequacy (r= .004, P= .98) or duration adequacy (r= -.17, P= .55). Similarly, there was no correlation between OC and either dosage adequacy (r= -.35, P= .22) or duration adequacy (r= -.12, P= .68).ConclusionAlthough CQI may help bridge the healthcare quality gap, it may not be associated with higher disease-specific quality of care.

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