CPHQ Guide Questions And
Answers 2025-2026
GRADED A+
H Appointment - ANS-Selection for membership in a medical professional staff or
to a practitioner panel.
H Appraisal - ANS-Initial evaluation by peers of a practitioner's competency to
provide care and services to patients in or for a healthcare origination. Appraisal
may include credentialing, privileging, proctoring and appointment.
H Benchmark - ANS-A comparative "best" as baseline for improvement.
H Clinical Path - ANS-A prospective, detailed, strategic treatment regimen, or
daily/intermittent protocol for patient care, designed to identify and integrate
key activities, interventions, and services for certain patient conditions. Clinical
paths are applicable across the continuum of care, e.g., in acute care form pre-
admission and pre-operative treatment through the hospital stay to discharge
and post-discharge phases of care, including home care. Clinical/critical paths
are designed to include clinical performance criteria for specified time periods of
intervals, organized by categories of care needs, e.g., diagnostics, treatments,
activity, medications, psychosocial, etc. They are useful tools for measuring
actual performance.
H Crisis Management - ANS-1) Forecasting potential crisis and planning how to
deal with them (proactive) and 2) When a crisis occurs, identifying its full nature,
intervening to minimize damage, and recovering (reactive).
H Dephi Technique - ANS-A structured communication technique, a systematic,
interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The experts
answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator
provides an anonymous summary of the experts' forecasts from the previous
round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are
encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other
members of their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the
,answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer.
Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of
rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results) and the mean or median
scores of the final rounds determine the results.
H Demand Management - ANS-Term from economics; in project management it
refers to meeting customer expectations; in managed care it refers to influencing
access to medical care.
H Disease Management - ANS-Disease management is a system of coordinated
healthcare interventions and communications for populations with conditions in
which patient self-care efforts are significant.
H Ethic - ANS-A set of principles of right conduct.
H Ethics - ANS-Rules or standards governing conduct.
H Event - ANS-An occurrence that is either deemed to be, or results in a
significant problem. e.g., sentinel event, adverse event, near miss event.
H E&CF Chart - ANS-Events and Causal Factors: Used to find root causes.
Combines a flowchart and affinity diagram to identify both the sequence of
events and relevant conditions affecting each event.
H Failure Mode - ANS-The way a process can fail to function or fail to provide the
desired result; an undesirable variation in a process.
H FMEA - ANS-Failure Mode and Effects Analysis: A team-based quality
improvement tool hat prospectively assesses, identifies, and improves steps in a
process to reasonably ensure a safe and clinically desirable outcome [NCPS]: A
systematic mechanism to identify and prevent product and process failures
before they occur.
H Flowchart - ANS-A pictorial representation displaying the actual-sequence of
steps and their inter-relationships in a specific process in order to identify hand-
offs, inefficiencies, redundancies, inspections, and waiting steps and/or the ideal-
sequence of steps, once the actual process is known.
, H Force Field Analysis - ANS-A change management tool. Looks at forces for and
against a change; 1) to decide if the change should be attempted or 2) used to
create strategies to increase support and decrease opposition.
H Gantt Chart - ANS-Project planning tool for developing schedules; a graphic
display of individual parts of a quality improvement process as bars on a
horizontal time scale.
H HAI - ANS-Healthcare-Associated Infection: Replaces "nosocomial infection"
(hospital-acquired) because it implies all health care and is not limited to
hospitals. {More general Healthcare-Acquired Conditions {HAC}}
H Iatrogenic - ANS-An infection or other complication of treatment induced in a
patient by a physician's or other licensed independent practitioner's activity,
manner, or therapy.
H Indicator - ANS-"Performance Measure": Includes data definitions, as well as
numerator and denominator statements, to accurately specify what is being
measured.
H Integrated Delivery System - Horizontal - ANS-Multi-institutional entity with
coordinated functions, activities, or operating units that are at the same stage or
segment of the continuum of care, e.g., hospital system.
H Integrated Delivery System - Vertical - ANS-A network of entities that provide
and coordinate healthcare to a defined population across the entire continuum of
care: prevention, ambulatory, subacute, acute, and long term.
H Interrelationship Diagram - ANS-A tool that allows a team to analyze all the
interrelated cause-and-effect relationships and factors involved in a complex
problem; distinguish between issues that serve as drivers and those that are
outcomes; and describe desired outcomes.
H Leadership Group - ANS-"Individuals in senior positions with clearly defined,
unique responsibilities." Possible groups include governance, management,
medical staff, nursing, other clinical staff. An individual may be a member of
more than one group.
H LIP - ANS-Licensed Independent Practitioner: Any individual who is
professionally licensed by the state (US) and permitted by the organization to
Answers 2025-2026
GRADED A+
H Appointment - ANS-Selection for membership in a medical professional staff or
to a practitioner panel.
H Appraisal - ANS-Initial evaluation by peers of a practitioner's competency to
provide care and services to patients in or for a healthcare origination. Appraisal
may include credentialing, privileging, proctoring and appointment.
H Benchmark - ANS-A comparative "best" as baseline for improvement.
H Clinical Path - ANS-A prospective, detailed, strategic treatment regimen, or
daily/intermittent protocol for patient care, designed to identify and integrate
key activities, interventions, and services for certain patient conditions. Clinical
paths are applicable across the continuum of care, e.g., in acute care form pre-
admission and pre-operative treatment through the hospital stay to discharge
and post-discharge phases of care, including home care. Clinical/critical paths
are designed to include clinical performance criteria for specified time periods of
intervals, organized by categories of care needs, e.g., diagnostics, treatments,
activity, medications, psychosocial, etc. They are useful tools for measuring
actual performance.
H Crisis Management - ANS-1) Forecasting potential crisis and planning how to
deal with them (proactive) and 2) When a crisis occurs, identifying its full nature,
intervening to minimize damage, and recovering (reactive).
H Dephi Technique - ANS-A structured communication technique, a systematic,
interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The experts
answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator
provides an anonymous summary of the experts' forecasts from the previous
round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are
encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other
members of their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the
,answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer.
Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of
rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results) and the mean or median
scores of the final rounds determine the results.
H Demand Management - ANS-Term from economics; in project management it
refers to meeting customer expectations; in managed care it refers to influencing
access to medical care.
H Disease Management - ANS-Disease management is a system of coordinated
healthcare interventions and communications for populations with conditions in
which patient self-care efforts are significant.
H Ethic - ANS-A set of principles of right conduct.
H Ethics - ANS-Rules or standards governing conduct.
H Event - ANS-An occurrence that is either deemed to be, or results in a
significant problem. e.g., sentinel event, adverse event, near miss event.
H E&CF Chart - ANS-Events and Causal Factors: Used to find root causes.
Combines a flowchart and affinity diagram to identify both the sequence of
events and relevant conditions affecting each event.
H Failure Mode - ANS-The way a process can fail to function or fail to provide the
desired result; an undesirable variation in a process.
H FMEA - ANS-Failure Mode and Effects Analysis: A team-based quality
improvement tool hat prospectively assesses, identifies, and improves steps in a
process to reasonably ensure a safe and clinically desirable outcome [NCPS]: A
systematic mechanism to identify and prevent product and process failures
before they occur.
H Flowchart - ANS-A pictorial representation displaying the actual-sequence of
steps and their inter-relationships in a specific process in order to identify hand-
offs, inefficiencies, redundancies, inspections, and waiting steps and/or the ideal-
sequence of steps, once the actual process is known.
, H Force Field Analysis - ANS-A change management tool. Looks at forces for and
against a change; 1) to decide if the change should be attempted or 2) used to
create strategies to increase support and decrease opposition.
H Gantt Chart - ANS-Project planning tool for developing schedules; a graphic
display of individual parts of a quality improvement process as bars on a
horizontal time scale.
H HAI - ANS-Healthcare-Associated Infection: Replaces "nosocomial infection"
(hospital-acquired) because it implies all health care and is not limited to
hospitals. {More general Healthcare-Acquired Conditions {HAC}}
H Iatrogenic - ANS-An infection or other complication of treatment induced in a
patient by a physician's or other licensed independent practitioner's activity,
manner, or therapy.
H Indicator - ANS-"Performance Measure": Includes data definitions, as well as
numerator and denominator statements, to accurately specify what is being
measured.
H Integrated Delivery System - Horizontal - ANS-Multi-institutional entity with
coordinated functions, activities, or operating units that are at the same stage or
segment of the continuum of care, e.g., hospital system.
H Integrated Delivery System - Vertical - ANS-A network of entities that provide
and coordinate healthcare to a defined population across the entire continuum of
care: prevention, ambulatory, subacute, acute, and long term.
H Interrelationship Diagram - ANS-A tool that allows a team to analyze all the
interrelated cause-and-effect relationships and factors involved in a complex
problem; distinguish between issues that serve as drivers and those that are
outcomes; and describe desired outcomes.
H Leadership Group - ANS-"Individuals in senior positions with clearly defined,
unique responsibilities." Possible groups include governance, management,
medical staff, nursing, other clinical staff. An individual may be a member of
more than one group.
H LIP - ANS-Licensed Independent Practitioner: Any individual who is
professionally licensed by the state (US) and permitted by the organization to
