Journal for Healthcare Quality最新文献

Abstract: Transitions in patient care require exchanges of information between providers. This period of transition presents a range of challenges, and inadequate transitions can have serious consequences for patients. Our objective was to understand providers' perspectives about patient care transitions, especially around communication between providers and the role of health information technology in provider-to-provider communication. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Deductive-dominant thematic analysis was used to allow categorization of data based on general themes derived from the interview guides, as well as identification of emergent themes. We characterized three main themes involving providers' perspectives about care transitions. Themes included communication challenges, communication preferences, and suggestions for improving the care transition processes. With respect to challenges around communication, providers highlighted four main concerns. These concerns included the existence of too many methods of communication, high volume of communication, challenges with involvement of multiple providers delivering longitudinal care, and difficulty communicating with providers outside the health system. Providers noted opportunities to improve transitions including improving standardization, enhancing the specialty to primary care transition process, and increasing communication back to the referring provider. Implementation and evaluation of these improvements could be considered by health systems to enhance care transitions.

Introduction: Hospital-based antibiotic stewardship programs (ASPs) are an important strategy in combating antibiotic resistance. Four antibiotic stewardship interventions are recommended by the CDC as particularly well-designed to engage nurses. However, there is limited information on whether and how existing hospital-based ASPs reflect these practices.

Purpose: To describe how nurses are being engaged in hospital ASPs and to what extent this overlaps with the CDC framework.

Methods: This scoping review included studies published in the last 10 years on engaging nurses in hospital-based ASPs. Three databases, PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase, were searched.

Results: The search yielded 195 unique articles. Ten articles were retained for review detailing how nurses are engaged. One CDC recommended intervention, initiating discussion of antibiotic treatment, appeared in nine studies.

Conclusions: Although hospitals are engaging nurses in antibiotic stewardship programs, their selected approaches do not reflect the full breadth of the opportunities identified by the CDC. More detail as to how exactly nurses engage would also be a useful addition to the literature.

Implications: More research is needed on nurse engagement on culturing or testing and penicillin allergy evaluation. Standardized measures should be collected and reported to measure the impact of engaging nurses in ASPs.

Abstract: Blood availability was uncertain during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet transfusion remained a common and sometimes necessary procedure. Substantial work on optimizing transfusion practices is centered in tertiary hospitals as high utilizers of blood while the care delivered in smaller community hospitals comprises more than half the nation's transfusions. Improving transfusion practices in community hospitals represents a substantial opportunity to enhance patient safety and the availability of blood resources. Clinical specialists developed a dashboard to retrospectively examine transfusion events including an evidence-based analysis of the patient's clinical situation at the time of transfusion to more accurately identify how appropriately blood was used. The compiled data were discussed and shared with transfusing providers. It was hypothesized that the data provided and communication strategies used would educate providers to current evidence-based practice, leading to more appropriate transfusion with an overall reduction in packed red blood cell utilization. There was an 11% increase in transfusion appropriateness (p = <.001) and a 14% decrease in the units transfused (p = .004). Improvement in transfusion practices demonstrates a significant impact on patient safety and the availability of blood resources. Although absolute opportunity may be less in a community hospital, fewer resources are needed to achieve meaningful change.

Introduction: Pediatric sepsis is a leading cause of death among children. Electronic alert systems may improve early recognition but do not consistently result in timely interventions given the multitude of clinical presentations, lack of treatment consensus, standardized order sets, and inadequate interdisciplinary team-based communication. We conducted a quality improvement project to improve timely critical treatment of patients at risk for infection-related decompensation (IRD) through team-based communication and standardized treatment workflow.

Methods: We evaluated children at risk for IRD as evidenced by the activation of an electronic alert system (Children at High Risk Alert Tool [CAHR-AT]) in the emergency department. Outcomes were assessed after multiple improvements including CAHR-AT implementation, clinical coassessment, visual cues for situational awareness, huddles, and standardized order sets.

Results: With visual cue activation, initial huddle compliance increased from 7.8% to 65.3% ( p < .001). Children receiving antibiotics by 3 hours postactivation increased from 37.9% pre-CAHR-AT to 50.7% posthuddle implementation ( p < .0001); patients who received a fluid bolus by 3 hours post-CAHR activation increased from 49.0% to 55.2% ( p = .001).

Conclusions: Implementing a well-validated electronic alert tool did not improve quality measures of timely treatment for high-risk patients until combined with team-based communication, standardized reassessment, and treatment workflow.

Abstract: The students at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine (MCASOM) wrote a call to action to medical school leadership in June 2020. The students requested help in navigating socio-political barriers that affected one another and contributed to healthcare inequities and mistrust. Using the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) tool to assess cultural competence training, our team evaluated the baseline 2017-2018 MCASOM curriculum. There were 254 learning objectives, of which 43 (17%) were related to inclusion, diversity, antiracism, and equity (I-DARE). Mirroring the concerns of the students, the findings identified minimal content about antiracism and inclusion. By applying DMAIC principles for quality and process improvement, we aimed to increase the number of taught learning objectives about I-DARE content for the first-year and second-year medical students by 100%, from 43 to 86 objectives, without adversely affecting student satisfaction and true attendance. To address the underlying causes, we launched a virtual, multisite I-DARE medical school course and doubled the number of I-DARE-taught learning objectives from 43 to 107 (149%), compared with the baseline. The program evaluation review revealed that the students were self-reflective and provided a spectrum of experiences regarding the I-DARE course.

Abstract: Concurrent substance use and mental health disorders in youth are a major public health concern and require specialized and comprehensive services. In this paper, a novel inpatient tertiary care facility serving youth aged 13 to 18 with significant concurrent substance use and mental health issues is introduced. The development of this unit was prompted by the opioid overdose crisis in British Columbia and serves as the third concurrent disorders unit in Canada catered specifically to an adolescent population. From its opening in 2017, preadmission and postadmission data from each patient was gathered with the aim of providing a robust image of the serviced patient population as well as the efficacy of this service model. Patients admitted to this program had significantly higher quality of life ( d = 0.65) and significantly lower suicidality ( d = 0.86) at discharge, compared with at admission. Patients identifying as female had significantly lower quality of life, higher suicidality, and higher prevalence of adverse childhood events compared with patients identifying as male. Results from this program evaluation outline the efficacy of a novel concurrent disorders program for youth while further providing an overview of clinical and relevant demographic characteristics from an underanalyzed patient population.

Objective: The SUPPORT Act provided resources for developing prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) capable of reporting on four specific opioid quality measures. Therefore, the objective of this pilot study was to map, test, and adapt these claims-based opioid quality measures specified for health plan performance to PDMP data for state-level performance.

Materials and methods: Maryland PDMP and claims from Maryland Medicaid beneficiaries continuously enrolled from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020.

Results: The measure rates as specified using claims data are closely aligned with the measure rates when mapped and adapted to PDMP data. The Concurrent Use of Opioids and Benzodiazepines measure rates were 14.49% and 15.31%, the OHD rates were 12.44% and 13.54%, the OHDMP rates were 0.01% and 0.40%, and the Use of Opioids from Multiple Providers in Persons Without Cancer rates were 0.12% and 3.03% for the claims-based and adapted measures, respectively.

Discussion: This is a novel application that may be replicated in other states to support quality improvement and can have a measurable effect on stemming the drug abuse epidemic.

Conclusions: This will facilitate data sharing of the opioid quality measure reporting within the Maryland PDMP and stakeholders responsible for caring for Maryland Medicaid beneficiaries. Owing to the encouragement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, other states' PDMPs may require the adaptation of these measures. This will open the door for innovative state-level policy and practice interventions. The quantification of outcomes related to these measures will inform our learning healthcare system and help support the Quintuple Aim.

Introduction: Increased intrahospital traffic (IHT) is associated with adverse events and infections in hospitalized patients. Network science has been used to study patient flow in hospitals but not specifically for patients with traumatic injuries.

Methods: This retrospective analysis included 103 patients with traumatic hip fractures admitted to a level I trauma center between April 2021 and September 2021. Associations with IHTs (moves within the hospital) were analyzed using R (4.1.2) as a weighted directed graph.

Results: The median (interquartile range) number of moves was 8 (7-9). The network consisted of 16 distinct units and showed mild disassortativity (-0.35), similar to other IHT networks. The floor and intensive care unit (ICU) were central units in the flow of patients, with the highest degree and betweenness. Patients spent a median of 20-28 hours in the ICU, intermediate care unit, or floor. The number of moves per patient was mildly correlated with hospital length of stay (ρ = 0.26, p = .008). Intrahospital traffic volume was higher on weekdays and during daytime hours. Intrahospital traffic volume was highest in patients aged <65 years ( p = .04), but there was no difference in IHT volume by dependent status, complications, or readmissions.

Conclusions: Network science is a useful tool for trauma patients to plan IHT, flow, and staffing.

Abstract: Paging and text messaging to request new orders remain common means of communication between clinicians and nurses in the hospital setting. However, sending and triaging multiple pages can lead to interruptions in other clinical duties. A medication order delegation protocol allowing for nurse-driven ordering of low-risk medications was developed with an objective of decreasing potentially avoidable pages. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of implementing this protocol on nurse and clinician perceptions of clerical burden and satisfaction. A survey assessing satisfaction with the process of obtaining medications in this protocol and the perception of clerical burden associated with ordering them before and after delegation protocol implementation was completed by over 160 clinicians and nurses. Survey respondents reported increased satisfaction and decreased clerical burden associated with the implementation of the delegation protocol. These results suggest the potential for delegation protocols to limit clerical burden associated with paging.

Background/purpose: Based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hospitals receiving funding from the Department of Human and Health Services must ensure adequate language assistance via a qualified interpreter for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) patients. Despite availability at our institution, official interpreter services were underutilized with inconsistent documentation of use. Baseline data over a 6-week period revealed a median of 43% of LEP parents reported use of official interpreter services, with a median of 0% documentation of use. We aimed to improve both over a 3-month period.

Methods: This quality improvement project was conducted at a children's hospital between April and August 2020. Surveys were provided to inpatient LEP families. Four intervention periods were implemented with ongoing data collection for 12 weeks. Interventions included developing best practices, incorporating language identification into daily workflow, empowering families, and standardizing documentation. Data were analyzed by run chart and descriptive statistics.

Results: After interventions and several plan-do-study-act cycles, a median of 73% reported use of official interpreter services, and a median of 59% were documented.

Conclusions: After multiple interventions, specifically noted after intervention period #2, improvement of official interpreter service use and documentation were identified in all inpatient units.