As global leaders in quality improvement and patient safety, CQuIPS is proud to oversee the SQuIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) international writing guidelines. Since becoming stewards of the guidelines in October 2023, the team at CQuIPS has been collaborating with an advisory committee comprised of international leaders in quality improvement and patient safety and journal editors to promote the accessibility and adoption of SQuIRE across the healthcare improvement field. An evidence-informed process to update the SQuIRE guidelines to SQuIRE 3.0 has begun.

SQuIRE 2.0 serves as the gold standard for reporting QI research and scholarship. The current version of SQuIRE, SQuIRE 2.0, was revised in 2015 and is listed on the EQUATOR Network’s main webpage (the EQUATOR Network is the leading authority on academic writing and reporting guidelines). These guidelines provide a critical framework for ensuring QI research is rigorous, reproducible, and impactful. Beyond reporting, SQuIRE has also been adopted by leading international QI education programs as their formal teaching framework to provide guidance on how to conduct QI work. 

CQuIPS’ connection to SQuIRE has been well established over the years as key CQuIPS faculty have been involved in previous developments and updates. Kaveh Shojania and Ross Baker both served as SQuIRE 2.0 advisory committee members. Brian Wong, was a contributor to the development of the SQuIRE 2.0 EDU extension, and Jerome Leis co-authored the SQuIRE Explanation & Elaboration supplement to the SQuIRE 2.0 guidelines.

By taking on oversight of the SQuIRE guidelines, CQuIPS becomes the international standard bearer for QI and is committed to ensuring the guidelines are relevant and reflective of the ever evolving and growing QIPS field. The updated SQuIRE 3.0 guidelines will provide clearer guidance on the rigorous application of QI methods and tools and include an explicit focus on equity considerations.

Updating SQuIRE 3.0 is a priority for the CQuIPS team. Lead by SQuIRE 3.0 co-leads, Kaveh Shojania and Leahora Rotteau, the SQuIRE 3.0 update initiative includes three phases; data collection to inform key potential changes to SQuIRE, a consensus meeting to finalize changes, and SQuIRE 3.0 user testing and refinement.

We are currently in the data collection phase. We have completed a website scan of key healthcare improvement and clinical journals and a series of qualitative interviews with QI leaders, educators and journal editors. We are also completing a large systematic review of QI and improvement research publications to characterize the application of SQuIRE and other common QI concepts. The consensus meeting will take place in the Fall of 2025 followed by user testing. Kaveh Shojania and Leahora Rotteau will be presenting this work at the upcoming International Forum on Quality & Safety in Utrecht, The Netherlands in May 2025.

The team at CQuIPS is currently working on updating the SQuIRE website, but you can view the SQuIRE Guidelines here: www.squire-statement.org

For more information on The Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, visit: www.cquips.ca