Psychology in health care: How psychologists' training translates to quality improvement.

Abstract

Improving health care is complex and challenging and requires robust interventions to create change. Quality improvement (QI) interventions represent the current state of the art for improving care practices. QI as a field of research and practice has five key areas: (a) generalizable scientific evidence, (b) contextual awareness, (c) performance measurement, (d) plans for change, and (e) execution of planned changes. Applied psychology is ideally situated to lead and inform health care change and engage in QI approaches. Applied psychologists share training in scientific and empirical methods and maintain expertise in diverse domains including clinical health and human behavior change, industrial and organizational systems, human performance, education and training, and other related domains of skill and knowledge with significant potential to strengthen QI programs in health care. Collectively, psychology has an opportunity to assemble expert teams that can drive empirically informed impactful programs to improve health and health care practices. Unfortunately, QI approaches are not comprehensively addressed in training and professional development programs for psychologists. This article reviews opportunities for the field of psychology to improve its engagement in QI in health care settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).