The Academy for Healthcare Improvement is offering its premier scholarly healthcare QI research conference in the spring of 2012 in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The AHI fosters an interprofessional community that advances quality improvement in health care through educational activities. This meeting is intended to be an international, interprofessional meeting and is open for anyone interested in the best methods for healthcare QI research. The draft program is available here: http://www.a4hi.org/symposium/program2012.cfm

Abstracts will be considered for presentation on key issues around quality improvement research or evaluation projects from a scholarship point of view. Topics of emphasis include strong study design, well-described analytic approaches, mechanisms of quality improvement, constructs and theory of implementation science, and best practices for evaluation of healthcare delivery improvement. Protocols for ongoing projects as well as completed studies will be considered. Top-rated abstracts in each category will be selected for oral presentation. Additional highly rated abstracts will be selected for poster presentation.

The abstract must consist of no more than 500 words, excluding contact information. There may be no more than two figures (tables and/or graphs) which must be submitted as a single pdf file.

A structured abstract is recommended and may include figures and conform to the following outline.
1. Background/Conceptual Framework
2. Purpose of the Study/Innovation
3. Methods
4. Results
5. Conclusions and Implications

Presenters whose papers are selected for poster presentation are responsible for producing posters for display in the evening and midday poster sessions.

 Other Information to Include
In the abstract, include all of the authors' names and the name and city of the institution in which the work was conducted, if applicable.

Online Submission: You will need a Web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) to complete the ABSTRACT submission online. You will be asked to provide a password and you can work on the ABSTRACT submission over days or weeks. When you decide you have completed your ABSTRACT submission, you "submit." Once you submit, you will receive an e-mail message confirming successful receipt of the ABSTRACT submission; this e-mail message will also contain a copy of the ABSTRACT submission as received.

The web site is available 24 hours a day until 11:59pm EST on March 15, 2012 from any location that has access to the Internet.

General Information: You may use a text editing program to write your ABSTRACT submission such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect and paste the text into the ABSTRACT submission text area, BUT you must avoid the use of special characters to make sure your browser will not misinterpret the special characters typed. (More technical explanation follows on the website.)

Contact: Should you encounter any problems or error messages during your submission process or need additional information, please contact Kathleen Hemming at the AHI offices at a4hi@a4hi.org or phone 703/556-9225 x112.