Abstract
With the passage of national healthcare reform, the delivery of healthcare is entering a period of transition and limited use of resources. As a result of the expected changes and the need to deliver quality care, physicians are being asked to actively participate in clinical and process improvement projects. With this in mind, the School of Medicine at the University of Miami recognized the need to introduce traditional quality improvement education in their internal medicine residency program and a rotation was developed using traditional IE tools and techniques. Also, a measurement of which factors influence an individual to adopt new tools was needed. This paper will present the Diffusion of Innovation literature and the development of the tool that measures the factors that influence adoption. We will review the quality improvement curriculum that was developed for the residents and demonstrate how they were asked to apply the tools that they had learned. Finally, the paper will present the tool that was used to measure the resident's intent to adopt tools in quality improvement before and after the rotation, and the results from the tool. Finally, implications from the results will be discussed. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]