ACOOG MicroQI Wins National Award for Excellence in Educational Design
ACOOG MicroQI Wins National Award for Excellence in Educational Design
The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions recognized MicroQI, ACOOG's free quality improvement pathway for osteopathic OB/GYNs, with its 2027 award for educational design.
The American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOOG) has won the 2027 Award for Excellence in Educational Design from the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (Alliance). The award honors MicroQI: A Streamlined, Accessible, and Personalized Quality Improvement Pathway.
The Alliance gives this award to educational initiatives built on deliberate planning, ongoing assessment, and active stakeholder engagement. Judges weigh sustainability, replicability, scalability, and potential for scholarly dissemination. Winners must also show the program ran as designed, with thoughtful changes informed by feedback.
ACOOG will receive a commemorative plaque at the Alliance Awards Ceremony on Thursday, February 18, 2027, during the Alliance Annual Conference in Orlando. The Alliance also invited ACOOG to present a poster at the conference and publish an article on MicroQI in the Alliance Almanac.
The Problem MicroQI Solves
Physicians improve care every day. Few document it.
Board-certified osteopathic OB/GYNs complete a practice performance assessment and improvement activity for Osteopathic Continuous Certification (OCC) Component 4. Conventional quality improvement (QI) projects demand months of work, a written portfolio, and coaching. Many physicians, especially in solo and small-group practice, start these projects and abandon them.
An ACOOG member survey explained why. Respondents described QI projects as burdensome, time consuming, and paperwork heavy. One in five said they make improvements in their clinics without applying a QI framework and had abandoned formal projects over administrative requirements.
In a Member's Words
“A lot of work that often distract[s] from the care I provide.”
How MicroQI Works
A full Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle in three touch points.
MicroQI flips the usual model of association-sponsored QI. The physician picks the problem, sets a measurable aim, chooses the improvement window, tests one change, and reports the result. ACOOG supplies the structure and removes the friction. Automated reminders keep each project moving, and completers earn up to 5 continuing medical education (CME) credits plus a documented QI project record. The system is designed for the small, everyday improvements that happen but are rarely documented.
Initiate
State an aim tied to a gap in your practice, select a metric, and record a baseline.
Check in at midpoint
Confirm your change is running and note any barriers. An automated prompt arrives on the date you set.
Report and attest
Record your post-intervention result, reflect on what changed, and receive credit and documentation.
The Results
December 2025 through June 2026.
64%
completion rate, compared with a 14% median for ACOOG's prior QI offerings.
24
median days from start to finish.
8.5
percentage-point median gain, from below benchmark to above it.
71%
of completers adopted their change permanently.
To date, eleven physicians started a project and seven finished. Five of the seven fully met their aim, and two met it in part. Because each physician chose a different metric, ACOOG compared every result with the optimal benchmark for its own measure. The median baseline sat 6.5 points below benchmark. The median result after the change reached 2.0 points above it.
Nine of the 11 projects targeted clinical processes or outcomes measured at the patient level. Members chose problems from everyday practice:
Prenatal care and screening
Hereditary cancer screening, Tdap immunization in pregnancy, and prenatal laboratory collection.
Labor, delivery, and postpartum
Postpartum hemorrhage prevention, labor management, and postpartum follow-up.
Surgery and perioperative care
Intraoperative medication use and postoperative care.
Care coordination
Referral closure and transfers of prenatal patients from other practices.
Built to Last and Built to Share
MicroQI meets the award's tests for sustainability, scale, and replication.
- Sustainable. MicroQI runs on a platform ACOOG already used. Automation handles reminders, tracking, and records, so staff review each project once.
- Scalable. Current staffing supports 50 projects at once. Each new participant adds only review time.
- Replicable. Any organization with Smartsheet, Google Workspace, or a similar tool rebuilds the pathway at low cost. Learners supply the clinical content, so the model works in any specialty.
- Independent. MicroQI received no commercial support or grant funding. Members pay no fee.
ACOOG improved the pathway as it ran. When the first two projects missed their midpoint check-in, staff added automated nudges. Next, ACOOG plans to add an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant to help physicians write stronger aim statements.
Start your own MicroQI project.
Free to members. Up to 5 CME credits. Meets OCC Component 4.