NAHQ CPHQ UPDATED EXAMS ANSWERS AND
QUESTIONS SET A+
✔✔a. Composition of the team - ✔✔A Quality Council has chartered a performance
improvement team to reduce medication errors. The team has been meeting for several
months and progress has been slow. Which of the following is the most important factor
for the Quality Council to assess with the team leader?
a. Composition of the team
b. Number of medication errors since team was chartered
c. Team members' ability to interpret graphs
d. Length of team meetings
✔✔d. Meet with the departments to review the survey processes - ✔✔Two surveys
were completed in a healthcare facility that showed conflicting results concerning
patient satisfaction with food services. The two surveys were independently designed
and distributed by different departments within the facility. The healthcare quality
professional should first:
a. Set up a quality improvement team to improve food service
b. Redistribute the surveys to obtain a larger sample size.
c. Design, distribute, and analyze a new survey instrument
d. Meet with the departments to review the survey processes
✔✔a. Identify problems to be addressed in the organization - ✔✔Which of the following
steps occurs first in the facilitating change in an organization?
a. Identify problems to be addressed in the organization
b. Solicit feedback from management
c. Select key people in the organization to serve on the team
d. Develop a performance improvement plan
✔✔b. Facilitate discussion between the groups to enable them to assume ownership of
their portions of the problem - ✔✔The separate services of pharmacy and nursing are
having difficulty developing an action plan for med errors. Pharmacy services states that
nursing services causes the majority of the problems related to errors, while nursing
services states the opposite. What is the quality professional's role in resolving this
problem?
,a. Provide them with directives on how to solve the problem
b. Facilitate discussion between the groups to enable them to assume ownership of
their portions of the problem
c. Assign the task to an uninvolved manager
d. Refer the problem to the facility-wide quality council
✔✔a. Prioritize opportunities for improvement, pilot the improvement, compare pre- and
post-implementation data, and rollout to the entire organization - ✔✔Which of the
following best demonstrates the use of the PDCA performance improvement model?
a. Prioritize opportunities for improvement, pilot the improvement, compare pre- and
post-implementation data, and rollout to the entire organization
b. Review current practice, form a multidisciplinary committee, schedule a meeting to
develop a plan, and determine actions to be taken
c. Identify a problem, implement change, educate staff about the change, and rewrite
policies and procedures to augment the change
d. Collect baseline data, form a committee to develop the plan, validate audit data, and
formalize the change
✔✔d. Compare outcomes with pre-established goals - ✔✔Which of the following is the
best way to determine if a quality improvement initiative is successful?
a. Conduct a retrospective review
b. Survey patients and customers
c. Present findings to the Quality Council
d. Compare outcomes with pre-established goals
✔✔d. Evaluating the project - ✔✔Team building goals for a first meeting should include
all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Getting to know one another
b. Learning to work as a team
c. Setting meeting ground rules
d. Evaluating the project
✔✔d. Sharing the data with the staff to provide feedback - ✔✔An organization's data
demonstrate an increase in the number of patient falls. A healthcare quality professional
should recommend:
a. Revising the fall-risk assessment tool
b. Convening a focus group of medical staff to discuss fall risks
c. Increasing staff on weekends and nights
d. Sharing the data with the staff to provide feedback
✔✔b. Involve individuals directly affected by the change - ✔✔The best way to facilitate
change in healthcare organization is to:
a. Communicate through group meetings
b. Involve individuals directly affected by the change
c. Arrange presentations by senior leaders
d. Communicate through a group email
, ✔✔a. Ishikawa diagram - ✔✔In evaluating long wait times, a quality professional can
best demonstrate components related to staffing, methods, measures, materials, and
equipment by using:
a. Ishikawa diagram
b. Pie chart
c. Run chart
d. Histogram
✔✔a. 6 consecutive ascending data points - ✔✔Which of the following demonstrates a
true statistical increase in a run chart?
a. 6 consecutive ascending data points
b. Data points close to the mean line
c. 7 descending data points
d. A zigzag pattern of data points
✔✔d. 0.60 - ✔✔The relationship between patient satisfaction and hours per day on a
medical unit was found to be (r=0.60, p<0.05). What is the correlation between these
two values?
a. 0.05
b. 0.36
c. 0.55
d. 0.60
✔✔d. Providing outcome data at medical staff meetings - ✔✔The most effective way for
a healthcare quality professional to communicate quality improvement activities to the
medical staff is by:
a. Inviting medical staff to an in-service on quality tools
b. Evaluating physician participation on quality teams
c. Developing professional relationships
d. Providing outcome data at medical staff meetings
✔✔b. Data analysis and display - ✔✔Which of the following is an essential component
in a performance improvement report?
a. Team composition and attendance
b. Data analysis and display
c. Individual performance review
d. Governing body approval
✔✔c. Improve performance - ✔✔The primary reason healthcare orgs use benchmarking
is to:
a. Provide risk adjustment
b. Decrease risk to the org
c. Improve performance
d. Comply with accreditation
QUESTIONS SET A+
✔✔a. Composition of the team - ✔✔A Quality Council has chartered a performance
improvement team to reduce medication errors. The team has been meeting for several
months and progress has been slow. Which of the following is the most important factor
for the Quality Council to assess with the team leader?
a. Composition of the team
b. Number of medication errors since team was chartered
c. Team members' ability to interpret graphs
d. Length of team meetings
✔✔d. Meet with the departments to review the survey processes - ✔✔Two surveys
were completed in a healthcare facility that showed conflicting results concerning
patient satisfaction with food services. The two surveys were independently designed
and distributed by different departments within the facility. The healthcare quality
professional should first:
a. Set up a quality improvement team to improve food service
b. Redistribute the surveys to obtain a larger sample size.
c. Design, distribute, and analyze a new survey instrument
d. Meet with the departments to review the survey processes
✔✔a. Identify problems to be addressed in the organization - ✔✔Which of the following
steps occurs first in the facilitating change in an organization?
a. Identify problems to be addressed in the organization
b. Solicit feedback from management
c. Select key people in the organization to serve on the team
d. Develop a performance improvement plan
✔✔b. Facilitate discussion between the groups to enable them to assume ownership of
their portions of the problem - ✔✔The separate services of pharmacy and nursing are
having difficulty developing an action plan for med errors. Pharmacy services states that
nursing services causes the majority of the problems related to errors, while nursing
services states the opposite. What is the quality professional's role in resolving this
problem?
,a. Provide them with directives on how to solve the problem
b. Facilitate discussion between the groups to enable them to assume ownership of
their portions of the problem
c. Assign the task to an uninvolved manager
d. Refer the problem to the facility-wide quality council
✔✔a. Prioritize opportunities for improvement, pilot the improvement, compare pre- and
post-implementation data, and rollout to the entire organization - ✔✔Which of the
following best demonstrates the use of the PDCA performance improvement model?
a. Prioritize opportunities for improvement, pilot the improvement, compare pre- and
post-implementation data, and rollout to the entire organization
b. Review current practice, form a multidisciplinary committee, schedule a meeting to
develop a plan, and determine actions to be taken
c. Identify a problem, implement change, educate staff about the change, and rewrite
policies and procedures to augment the change
d. Collect baseline data, form a committee to develop the plan, validate audit data, and
formalize the change
✔✔d. Compare outcomes with pre-established goals - ✔✔Which of the following is the
best way to determine if a quality improvement initiative is successful?
a. Conduct a retrospective review
b. Survey patients and customers
c. Present findings to the Quality Council
d. Compare outcomes with pre-established goals
✔✔d. Evaluating the project - ✔✔Team building goals for a first meeting should include
all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Getting to know one another
b. Learning to work as a team
c. Setting meeting ground rules
d. Evaluating the project
✔✔d. Sharing the data with the staff to provide feedback - ✔✔An organization's data
demonstrate an increase in the number of patient falls. A healthcare quality professional
should recommend:
a. Revising the fall-risk assessment tool
b. Convening a focus group of medical staff to discuss fall risks
c. Increasing staff on weekends and nights
d. Sharing the data with the staff to provide feedback
✔✔b. Involve individuals directly affected by the change - ✔✔The best way to facilitate
change in healthcare organization is to:
a. Communicate through group meetings
b. Involve individuals directly affected by the change
c. Arrange presentations by senior leaders
d. Communicate through a group email
, ✔✔a. Ishikawa diagram - ✔✔In evaluating long wait times, a quality professional can
best demonstrate components related to staffing, methods, measures, materials, and
equipment by using:
a. Ishikawa diagram
b. Pie chart
c. Run chart
d. Histogram
✔✔a. 6 consecutive ascending data points - ✔✔Which of the following demonstrates a
true statistical increase in a run chart?
a. 6 consecutive ascending data points
b. Data points close to the mean line
c. 7 descending data points
d. A zigzag pattern of data points
✔✔d. 0.60 - ✔✔The relationship between patient satisfaction and hours per day on a
medical unit was found to be (r=0.60, p<0.05). What is the correlation between these
two values?
a. 0.05
b. 0.36
c. 0.55
d. 0.60
✔✔d. Providing outcome data at medical staff meetings - ✔✔The most effective way for
a healthcare quality professional to communicate quality improvement activities to the
medical staff is by:
a. Inviting medical staff to an in-service on quality tools
b. Evaluating physician participation on quality teams
c. Developing professional relationships
d. Providing outcome data at medical staff meetings
✔✔b. Data analysis and display - ✔✔Which of the following is an essential component
in a performance improvement report?
a. Team composition and attendance
b. Data analysis and display
c. Individual performance review
d. Governing body approval
✔✔c. Improve performance - ✔✔The primary reason healthcare orgs use benchmarking
is to:
a. Provide risk adjustment
b. Decrease risk to the org
c. Improve performance
d. Comply with accreditation
