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Quality indicators in intensive care medicine: why? Use or burden for the intensivist.

ABSTRACT: In order to improve quality (of therapy), one has to know, evaluate and make transparent, one's own daily processes. This process of reflection can be supported by the presentation of key data or indicators, in which the real as-is state can be represented. Quality indicators are required in order to depict the as-is state.Quality indicators reflect adherence to specific quality measures. Continuing registration of an indicator is useless once it becomes irrelevant or adherence is 100%. In the field of intensive care medicine, studies of quality indicators have been performed in some countries. Quality indicators relevant for medical quality and outcome in critically ill patients have been identified by following standardized approaches.Different German societies of intensive care medicine have finally agreed on 10 core quality indicators that will be valid for two years and are currently recommended in German intensive care units (ICUs).

SUBMITTER: Braun JP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2975264 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Quality indicators in intensive care medicine: why? Use or burden for the intensivist.

Braun Jan-Peter JP Mende Hendrik H Bause Hanswerner H Bloos Frank F Geldner Götz G Kastrup Marc M Kuhlen Ralf R Markewitz Andreas A Martin Jörg J Quintel Michael M Steinmeier-Bauer Klaus K Waydhas Christian C Spies Claudia C

German medical science : GMS e-journal 20100928

In order to improve quality (of therapy), one has to know, evaluate and make transparent, one's own daily processes. This process of reflection can be supported by the presentation of key data or indicators, in which the real as-is state can be represented. Quality indicators are required in order to depict the as-is state.Quality indicators reflect adherence to specific quality measures. Continuing registration of an indicator is useless once it becomes irrelevant or adherence is 100%. In the f ...[more]

PMID: 21063472

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Most U.S. academic medical centers employ "closed" intensive care units (ICUs), where critically ill patients are admitted under the supervision of intensivists managing dedicated ICU teams. Some centers utilize a unique "open" ICU structure, where primary services longitudinally follow patients who become critically ill into the ICU with intensivist comanagement. The impact of open ICUs on patient care and education of trainees has not been well-characterized. OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study is to characterize affordances and barriers to education and patient care, from the perspectives of hospitalists and intensivists teaching in the ICU. DESIGN:We conducted semi-structured interviews with hospitalist and intensivist faculty at a large academic medical center with an open ICU structure. We coded deidentified interview transcripts to inductively analyze the data for themes and subthemes. PARTICIPANTS:We recruited hospitalist and intensivist faculty members who attend on teaching services in the open ICU system. APPROACH:Given the complexity of multiple teachers and learners in the ICU environment, we selected shared mental models as our primary theoretical lens through which we analyzed and interpreted our data. KEY RESULTS:We identified three main themes regarding education in the open ICU system: (1) communication challenges, (2) educational barriers and affordances, and (3) structural barriers and affordances. Hospitalists and intensivists agreed on some barriers and facilitators to education, such as continuity of care, yet they disagreed on others. Specifically, hospitalists and intensivists had a shared mental model regarding barriers to patient care and education in the open ICU structure, but had divergent opinions regarding the affordances of the structure, such as continuity and availability of ICU expertise. CONCLUSIONS:The open ICU environment presents facilitators and barriers to trainee education and patient care. Our findings can be leveraged to improve communication, education, and patient care on both hospitalist and ICU teams.

Project description:IntroductionExtensive antibiotic use makes the intensive care unit (ICU) an important focus for antibiotic stewardship programs. The aim of this study was to develop a set of actionable quality indicators for appropriate antibiotic use at ICUs and an implementation toolbox, which can be used to assess and improve the appropriateness of antibiotic use in the treatment of adult patients at an ICU.MethodsA four round modified-RAND Delphi procedure was used. Potential indicators were identified by a multidisciplinary panel of 15 Dutch experts, from international literature and guidelines. Using an online survey, the identified indicators were rated on three criteria: relevance, actionability and feasibility. Experts discussed and rated the indicators for the second time during a face-to-face consensus meeting. During a final consensus meeting the toolbox was developed, containing potential barriers and improvement strategies which were identified using a validated checklist by Flottorp et al., and if available also containing supporting material.ResultsThe first round resulted in 24 potential indicators. After the final meeting a set of three process indicators, one structure indicator and one quantity metric remained: 1) perform at least two sets of blood cultures before start of empirical systemic therapy; 2) perform therapeutic drug monitoring in patients treated with vancomycin or aminoglycosides; 3) perform surveillance cultures if selective digestive or oropharyngeal decontamination is applied at the ICU; 4) biannual face-to-face meetings between ICU and microbiology staff in which local resistance rates are discussed; and 5) quantitative antibiotic use at the ICU expressed in days of therapy (DOT). The toolbox contains 24 unique barriers and 37 improvement strategies.ConclusionsOur study identified a set of four actionable quality indicators and one quantity metric, together with an implementation toolbox, to improve appropriate antibiotic use at ICUs.

Project description:Strained intensive care unit (ICU) capacity represents a fundamental supply-demand mismatch in ICU resources. Strain is likely to be influenced by a range of factors; however, there has been no systematic evaluation of the spectrum of measures that may indicate strain on ICU capacity.We performed a systematic review to identify indicators of strained capacity. A comprehensive peer-reviewed search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science Core Collection was performed along with selected grey literature sources. We included studies published in English after 1990. We included studies that: (1) focused on ICU settings; (2) included description of a quality or performance measure; and (3) described strained capacity. Retrieved studies were screened, selected and extracted in duplicate. Quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS). Analysis was descriptive.Of 5297 studies identified in our search; 51 fulfilled eligibility. Most were cohort studies (n = 39; 76.5%), five (9.8%) were case-control, three (5.8%) were cross-sectional, two (3.9%) were modeling studies, one (2%) was a correlational study, and one (2%) was a quality improvement project. Most observational studies were high quality. Sixteen measures designed to indicate strain were identified 110 times, and classified as structure (n = 4, 25%), process (n = 7, 44%) and outcome (n = 5, 31%) indicators, respectively. The most commonly identified indicators of strain were ICU acuity (n = 21; 19.1% [process]), ICU readmission (n = 18; 16.4% [outcome]), after-hours discharge (n = 15; 13.6% [process]) and ICU census (n = 13; 11.8% [structure]). There was substantial heterogeneity in the operational definitions used to define strain indicators across studies.We identified and characterized 16 indicators of strained ICU capacity across the spectrum of healthcare quality domains. Future work should aim to evaluate their implementation into practice and assess their value for evaluating strategies to mitigate strain.This systematic review was registered at PROSPERO (March 27, 2015; CRD42015017931 ).

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Quality indicators in intensive care medicine: why? Use or burden for the intensivist.

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Quality indicators in intensive care medicine: why? Use or burden for the intensivist.

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