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Celebrating Ten Years of Clinicians in Quality and Innovation

group photo of clinicians in quality and innovation

Celebrating a Decade of Clinicians in Quality and Innovation

In 2012, the Department of Medicine created a new academic job description, the Clinician in Quality and Innovation (CQI). This change reflected the desire to provide an academic home for faculty whose scholarly work primarily relates to assessing and improving healthcare quality, developing innovative models of care, or pursuing other forms of innovation outside of traditional ‘discovery research’. The number of CQIs in the Department of Medicine has grown from one full-time faculty in 2012 to 78 in 2022. Across the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, other departments have added CQI faculty including Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Medical Imaging, and Psychiatry.

As the position description enters its tenth year, the Department of Medicine commissioned an independent review to examine the development of the position over time, its impacts, and challenges.

The full report and executive summary are available for review and a high-level overview of key statistics of the program is available below.

Dr. Piggott standing in front of a poster

Read the 2022 Clinicians in Quality and Innovation Academic Position Description Review

Clinicians in Quality and Innovation 2012-2022

Chart data
Year of Appointment as CQI 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
# of CQIs 1 1 14 19 29 37 42 45 53 61 70
# of faculty newly appointed as CQI 0 13 5 10 8 5 3 8 8 9 8
In many ways, the existence of the CQI job description was the first glimmer of hope I had that what I was doing was actually academically meaningful. As opposed to, that it was a barrier. Actually, for me, it was the first like, "So what I am doing could be academic? Excellent!." And so in many ways that CQI role description was a game changer for me because it gave some legitimacy to what I was doing. So I think in that way I consider it a big gift.

CQI Distribution by Hospital

Chart data
Sinai Health System Sunnybrook University Health Network Unity Health Toronto Women's College Hospital
12 17 27 15 7

Distribution of CQIs by Division

Chart data
Number of CQIs
Cardiology Critical Care Dermatology Emergency Medicine Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatric Medicine Hematology Infectious Diseases Internal Medicine Medical Oncology Nephrology Neurology Physiatry Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology
5 2 1 12 3 3 6 4 5 11 4 3 4 7 6 2

The CQI role has seen tremendous growth in 10 years—from one to 78 full-time faculty (and an additional 11 part-time). These faculty work at all of the major teaching hospitals (University Health Network, Unity Health, Sinai Health, Women’s College Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre) and span 16 of the Department’s 20 Divisions.

The full-time CQIs include 8 Lecturers, 55 Assistant Professors, 13 Associate Professors, and 2 Full Professors. Promotion has been successful in so far as all 29 applications for promotion of CQIs have succeeded on the first attempt. The CQIs have also had a 100% success rate for Continuing Faculty Appointment Review.