Quality improvement in ambulatory care: a network approach to quality improvement.

Quality Improvement in Ambulatory Care (QIAC), a national demonstration project undertaken in northern Minnesota, recently was honored by the American College of Physician Executives at its 1992 national meeting in San Francisco. The Merck, Sharp & Dohme Award for Advances in Quality, an award recognizing significant advances in improving the quality of healthcare delivery, was awarded for the first time ever to the QIAC project. Impartial reviewers, using objective criteria, selected this project as this year's most significant advance in improving healthcare quality because of its magnitude and its innovation.