Clinical communities at Johns Hopkins Medicine: an emerging approach to quality improvement.
Forming clinical communities that commit to shared goals can augment quality improvement efforts. This commentary describes the development of 14 clinical communities as a way to support institutional quality improvement goals in a large health care system. The authors report the benefits of the program, which enhanced access to expertise and collective knowledge. The article highlights the use of a unit-level engagement model and physician champions as key elements for the success of clinical communities.