Driven by the urgent needs to address quality, safety, equity, and value, now is the time to advance the profession of healthcare quality, which is best positioned to partner with clinical leaders and executives to advance and facilitate healthcare transformation.

When new professions form, they tend to follow a standard pathway. First, a professional home is created, such as a national professional membership association. Second, formal and informal education in the field emerges, and those who know how to do the work start teaching others to do it too. Next, certifications are established to validate knowledge and skills required by the profession in the field. Finally, advocacy and public relations build awareness among regulators and the public so that the benefits of the profession can be fully realized.

The profession of healthcare quality took shape in 1976, when a group of passionate individuals doing quality and improvement work began to associate with one another based on common interests and common cause. Together, these individuals founded the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). Soon after, NAHQ began developing professional training, and in 1983, it created the profession's first and only accredited certification in healthcare quality: The Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ). Graduate programs in healthcare quality and safety began to emerge in 2006. With the support of NAHQ and other leaders in healthcare, the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education and nine leading quality and safety graduate programs in the United States and Canada have crafted criteria and standards to form a robust accreditation process specific to the healthcare quality field.

With more than 8,000 active members and more than 13,000 active CPHQs, NAHQ serves a diverse set of stakeholders that are more like-minded than like-type, representing clinical and non-clinical disciplines across the continuum of care. As the professional home for the healthcare quality workforce, NAHQ has taken ownership of defining the profession by developing and validating the Healthcare Quality Competency Framework and supporting the needs of those doing and leading the work of quality, as well as those who are preparing to enter the profession.

As healthcare quality professionals continue to exhibit leadership in healthcare, the need to validate the value of the CPHQ credential in support of the profession becomes increasingly important. The research featured in this issue represents an important first step in this validation process. Evidence from NAHQ's Professional Assessment survey database suggests that professionals who are CPHQ certified are performing work in quality and safety competencies at more advanced levels than those without the CPHQ credential. Healthcare quality professionals are problem seekers and solution finders by nature, and NAHQ's research verifies that CPHQs are doing work that involves being inquisitive, leading and motivating teams, simplifying complex issues, and driving the sustainable changes that make healthcare better. More research is planned as NAHQ drives new knowledge to the field by exploring the impacts of healthcare quality workforce competencies on quality, safety, and value in healthcare.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on the healthcare system, and an intensified focus on quality and improvement will bring the change needed to forge a new path forward. A recent study conducted by The Health Foundation in the UK found that improvement played a more important, valuable, and strategic role during the pandemic, particularly in organizations that had a well-developed approach to improvement before the pandemic began.1 There is no doubt that healthcare quality will continue to play a more critical role going forward, and the next generation of healthcare quality professionals, healthcare leaders, and regulators should take a moment to reflect on this discipline and the positive impacts that skilled healthcare quality professionals are making. It is important to recognize how the healthcare quality profession has evolved from its roots in quality assurance to a profession that is now driving quality, safety, value, and innovation in healthcare. The healthcare system has never been more ready to advance quality and safety goals, and NAHQ has never been more prepared to support the healthcare quality workforce in this noble cause.

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