CPHQ (Certified Professional in Healthcare
Quality) Questions with Correct Answers
Guaranteed Pass
H Appointment - Answer -Selection for membership in a medical professional staff or to a
practitioner panel.
H Appraisal - Answer -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 - Answer -A comparative "best" as baseline for improvement.
H Clinical Path - Answer -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 CQI - Answer -System that seeks to improve services with an emphasis on future results. Like
total quality management, CQI uses a set of statistical tools to understand subsystems and uncover
problems, but its emphasis is on maintaining quality in the future, not just controlling a process. Once a
process that needs improvement is identified, a team of knowledgeable individuals is gathered to
research and document each step of that process. Once specific expectations and the means to measure
them have been established, implementation aims at preventing future failures and involves the setting
of goals, education, and the measurement of results.
H Crisis Management - Answer -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 Demand Management - Answer -Term from economics; in project management it refers to
meeting customer expectations; in managed care it refers to influencing access to medical care.
H Dephi Technique - Answer -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 Disease Management - Answer -Disease management is a system of coordinated healthcare
interventions and communications for populations with conditions in which patient self-care efforts are
significant.
H E&CF Chart - Answer -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 Ethic - Answer -A set of principles of right conduct.
H Ethics - Answer -Rules or standards governing conduct.
H Event - Answer -An occurrence that is either deemed to be, or results in a significant problem.
e.g., sentinel event, adverse event, near miss event.
H Failure Mode - Answer -The way a process can fail to function or fail to provide the desired
result; an undesirable variation in a process.
H Flowchart - Answer -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 FMEA - Answer -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 Force Field Analysis - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -"Performance Measure": Includes data definitions, as well as numerator and
denominator statements, to accurately specify what is being measured.
, H Integrated Delivery System - Horizontal - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -"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 - Answer -Licensed Independent Practitioner: Any individual who is professionally licensed by
the state (US) and permitted by the organization to provide patient care services without direction or
supervision, within the scope of that license.
H Management - Answer -The sum of the activities of: planning, organizing, staffing, directing,
coordinating, and working to improve human and material resources toward the achievement of stated
goals.
H Medicaid - Answer -Low-income, managed by each state.
H Medicare - Answer -Age 65+, permanent kidney failure, and disabled. Managed by CMS.
H Mission - Answer -The written expression of the origination's overall, broad purpose and role
(what/who the organization is). In a quality improvement environment it is expected that the statement
of mission will express a high-priority, comprehensive commitment to patient care, to quality in all
activities, and to service to the community. The mission statement is the basis for the formation of
organizational vision, values, goals, and objectives.
H Monitoring and Evaluation - Answer -Historically a data collection process that focused on high-
priority quality-of-care issues and was designed to facilitate problem solving and the identification of
opportunities to improve.
H Negligence - Answer -Lack of proper care, as judged by peers.
A person who alleges negligent medical malpractice must prove four elements: (1) a duty of care was
owed by the physician; (2) the physician violated the applicable standard of care; (3) the person suffered
a compensable injury; and (4) the injury was caused in fact and proximately caused by the substandard
conduct. The burden of proving these elements is on the plaintiff in a malpractice lawsuit.
H Negligent Conduct - Answer -Doing what a reasonable person would not do: failure to do what a
reasonable person would do (based on set standards and under like circumstances and training)
Quality) Questions with Correct Answers
Guaranteed Pass
H Appointment - Answer -Selection for membership in a medical professional staff or to a
practitioner panel.
H Appraisal - Answer -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 - Answer -A comparative "best" as baseline for improvement.
H Clinical Path - Answer -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 CQI - Answer -System that seeks to improve services with an emphasis on future results. Like
total quality management, CQI uses a set of statistical tools to understand subsystems and uncover
problems, but its emphasis is on maintaining quality in the future, not just controlling a process. Once a
process that needs improvement is identified, a team of knowledgeable individuals is gathered to
research and document each step of that process. Once specific expectations and the means to measure
them have been established, implementation aims at preventing future failures and involves the setting
of goals, education, and the measurement of results.
H Crisis Management - Answer -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 Demand Management - Answer -Term from economics; in project management it refers to
meeting customer expectations; in managed care it refers to influencing access to medical care.
H Dephi Technique - Answer -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 Disease Management - Answer -Disease management is a system of coordinated healthcare
interventions and communications for populations with conditions in which patient self-care efforts are
significant.
H E&CF Chart - Answer -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 Ethic - Answer -A set of principles of right conduct.
H Ethics - Answer -Rules or standards governing conduct.
H Event - Answer -An occurrence that is either deemed to be, or results in a significant problem.
e.g., sentinel event, adverse event, near miss event.
H Failure Mode - Answer -The way a process can fail to function or fail to provide the desired
result; an undesirable variation in a process.
H Flowchart - Answer -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 FMEA - Answer -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 Force Field Analysis - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -"Performance Measure": Includes data definitions, as well as numerator and
denominator statements, to accurately specify what is being measured.
, H Integrated Delivery System - Horizontal - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -"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 - Answer -Licensed Independent Practitioner: Any individual who is professionally licensed by
the state (US) and permitted by the organization to provide patient care services without direction or
supervision, within the scope of that license.
H Management - Answer -The sum of the activities of: planning, organizing, staffing, directing,
coordinating, and working to improve human and material resources toward the achievement of stated
goals.
H Medicaid - Answer -Low-income, managed by each state.
H Medicare - Answer -Age 65+, permanent kidney failure, and disabled. Managed by CMS.
H Mission - Answer -The written expression of the origination's overall, broad purpose and role
(what/who the organization is). In a quality improvement environment it is expected that the statement
of mission will express a high-priority, comprehensive commitment to patient care, to quality in all
activities, and to service to the community. The mission statement is the basis for the formation of
organizational vision, values, goals, and objectives.
H Monitoring and Evaluation - Answer -Historically a data collection process that focused on high-
priority quality-of-care issues and was designed to facilitate problem solving and the identification of
opportunities to improve.
H Negligence - Answer -Lack of proper care, as judged by peers.
A person who alleges negligent medical malpractice must prove four elements: (1) a duty of care was
owed by the physician; (2) the physician violated the applicable standard of care; (3) the person suffered
a compensable injury; and (4) the injury was caused in fact and proximately caused by the substandard
conduct. The burden of proving these elements is on the plaintiff in a malpractice lawsuit.
H Negligent Conduct - Answer -Doing what a reasonable person would not do: failure to do what a
reasonable person would do (based on set standards and under like circumstances and training)
