SQuIRE History

The SQuIRE Guidelines have continued to evolve since their first publication in 2008 to align with the growth and sophistication of the healthcare improvement field and meet the needs of users. The impact of the Guidelines has continued to grow with the publication of SQuIRE revisions and extensions. The following is a list of key SQUIRE related milestones.

Date	Milestone	Description
2008	SQuIRE 1.0 published	The inaugural publication of SQuIRE, the international guidelines for quality improvement reporting, marked an important milestone towards enhancing completeness, precision and accuracy of published reports of systematic efforts to improve the quality, value and safety of healthcare.
2012	Revisions to SQuIRE 1.0 begin	Advances in the discipline of healthcare quality improvement prompted the original SQuIRE authors to revise the Guidelines.
2015	"The SQuIRE Guidelines: an evaluation from the field, 5 years post release publication in BMJ Quality & Safety	This publication reports on an evaluation of the Guideline, as a first step to SQuIRE revisions. Using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, this study demonstrated that the GUIDELINES were perceived as complicated and unclear and identified areas for improving clarity.
2015	SQuIRE 2.0 published	The updated Guidelines were published concurrently in 12 journals. These updated Guidelines aimed to reflect the dynamic nature and the wide variety of approaches used in healthcare improvement efforts.
2016	"Findings from a novel approach to publication guideline revision: user road testing of a draft version of SQuIRE 2.0 publication in BMJ Quality & Safety	This publication reports on the novel approach to "road test" a draft version of the updated Guidelines to determine the wide variety of approaches used in healthcare improvement efforts.
2019	"SQuIRE-EDU (Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence in Education): Publication Guidelines for Educational Improvement: published in Academic Medicine	The first extension for the SQuIRE guidelines is published to meet the needs of the healthcare education community. The SQuIRE-EDU Extension provides key considerations for educational improvement mapped onto the SQuIRE-2.0 guidelines.
2024	SQuIRE-SIM (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence for SIMulation) published in Simulation in Healthcare	A simulation-based extension for the SQuIRE-2.0 writing guideline was developed to provide standards for reporting for simulation-specific elements in improvement research.
2024	Revisions to SQuIRE 2.0 begin	In the decade since the publication of SQuIRE 2.0, the field of QI has continued to evolve to include more rigorous improvement and evaluation methodological designs and emerging areas of focus such as health equity and patient partnerships, which as currently not explicitly addressed. Through an evidence-informed process, the Guidelines will be updated to SQuIRE 3.0 to be user-friendly and reflective of the field they aim to support.