Dataset Information

The effect of a complementary e-learning course on implementation of a quality improvement project regarding care for elderly patients: a stepped wedge trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Delirium occurs frequently in elderly hospitalised patients and is associated with higher mortality, increased length of hospital stay, functional decline, and admission to long-term care. Healthcare professionals frequently do not recognise delirium, indicating that education can play an important role in improving delirium care for hospitalised elderly. Previous studies have indicated that e-learning can provide an effective way of educating healthcare professionals and improving quality of care, though results are inconsistent.

Methods and design

This stepped wedge cluster randomised trial will assess the effects of a complementary delirium e-learning course on the implementation of quality improvement initiative, which aims to enhance the recognition and management of delirium in elderly patients. The trial will be conducted in 18 Dutch hospitals and last 11 months. Measurements will be taken in all participating wards using monthly record reviews, in order to monitor delivered care. These measurements will include the percentage of elderly patients who were screened for the risk of developing delirium, use of the Delirium Observation Screening scale, use of nursing or medical interventions, and the percentage of elderly patients who were diagnosed with delirium. Data regarding the e-learning course will be gathered as well. These data will include user characteristics, information regarding use of the course, delirium knowledge before and after using the course, and the attitude and intentions of nurses concerning delirium care.

Setting

The study will be conducted in internal medicine and surgical wards of eighteen hospitals that are at the beginning stages of implementing the Frail Elderly Project in the Netherlands.

Discussion

Better recognition of elderly patients at risk for delirium and subsequent care is expected from the introduction of an e-learning course for nurses that is complementary to an existing quality improvement project. This trial has the potential to demonstrate that e-learning can be a vital part of the implementation process, especially for quality improvement projects aimed at complex health issues such as delirium. The study will contribute to a growing body of knowledge concerning e-learning and the effects it can have on knowledge as well as delivered care.

Trial registration

Netherlands Trial Register (NTR): NTR2885.

SUBMITTER: Van de Steeg L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3310782 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

The effect of a complementary e-learning course on implementation of a quality improvement project regarding care for elderly patients: a stepped wedge trial.

Van de Steeg Lotte L Langelaan Maaike M Ijkema Roelie R Wagner Cordula C

Implementation science : IS 20120302

<h4>Background</h4>Delirium occurs frequently in elderly hospitalised patients and is associated with higher mortality, increased length of hospital stay, functional decline, and admission to long-term care. Healthcare professionals frequently do not recognise delirium, indicating that education can play an important role in improving delirium care for hospitalised elderly. Previous studies have indicated that e-learning can provide an effective way of educating healthcare professionals and impr ...[more]

PMID: 22385554

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Systematic implementation of guidelines for opioid therapy management in chronic non-cancer pain can reduce opioid-related harms. However, implementation of guideline-recommended practices in routine care is subpar. The goal of this quality improvement (QI) project is to assess whether a clinic-tailored QI intervention improves the implementation of a health system-wide, guideline-driven policy on opioid prescribing in primary care. This manuscript describes the protocol for this QI project. METHODS:A health system with 28 primary care clinics caring for approximately 294,000 primary care patients developed and implemented a guideline-driven policy on long-term opioid therapy in adults with opioid-treated chronic non-cancer pain (estimated N = 3980). The policy provided multiple recommendations, including the universal use of treatment agreements, urine drug testing, depression and opioid misuse risk screening, and standardized documentation of the chronic pain diagnosis and treatment plan. The project team drew upon existing guidelines, feedback from end-users, experts and health system leadership to develop a robust QI intervention, targeting clinic-level implementation of policy-directed practices. The resulting multi-pronged QI intervention included clinic-wide and individual clinician-level educational interventions. The QI intervention will augment the health system's "routine rollout" method, consisting of a single educational presentation to clinicians in group settings and a separate presentation for staff. A stepped-wedge design will enable 9 primary care clinics to receive the intervention and assessment of within-clinic and between-clinic changes in adherence to the policy items measured by clinic-level electronic health record-based measures and process measures of the experience with the intervention. DISCUSSION:Developing methods for a health system-tailored QI intervention required a multi-step process to incorporate end-user feedback and account for the needs of targeted clinic team members. Delivery of such tailored QI interventions has the potential to enhance uptake of opioid therapy management policies in primary care. Results from this study are anticipated to elucidate the relative value of such QI activities.

Project description:BackgroundClinician utilization of practice guidelines can reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing and harm in chronic non-cancer pain; yet, implementation of "opioid guidelines" is subpar. We hypothesized that a multi-component quality improvement (QI) augmentation of "routine" system-level implementation efforts would increase clinician adherence to the opioid guideline-driven policy recommendations.MethodsOpioid policy was implemented system-wide in 26 primary care clinics. A convenience sample of 9 clinics received the QI augmentation (one-hour academic detailing; 2 online educational modules; 4-6 monthly one-hour practice facilitation sessions) in this non-randomized stepped-wedge QI project. The QI participants were volunteer clinic staff. The target patient population was adults with chronic non-cancer pain treated with long-term opioids. The outcomes included the clinic-level percentage of target patients with a current treatment agreement (primary outcome), rates of opioid-benzodiazepine co-prescribing, urine drug testing, depression and opioid misuse risk screening, and prescription drug monitoring database check; additional measures included daily morphine-equivalent dose (MED), and the percentages of all target patients and patients prescribed ≥90 mg/day MED. T-test, mixed-regression and stepped-wedge-based analyses evaluated the QI impact, with significance and effect size assessed with two-tailed p < 0.05, 95% confidence intervals and/or Cohen's d.ResultsTwo-hundred-fifteen QI participants, a subset of clinical staff, received at least one QI component; 1255 patients in the QI and 1632 patients in the 17 comparison clinics were prescribed long-term opioids. At baseline, more QI than comparison clinic patients were screened for depression (8.1% vs 1.1%, p = 0.019) and prescribed ≥90 mg/day MED (23.0% vs 15.5%, p = 0.038). The stepped-wedge analysis did not show statistically significant changes in outcomes in the QI clinics, when accounting for the comparison clinics' trends. The Cohen's d values favored the QI clinics in all outcomes except opioid-benzodiazepine co-prescribing. Subgroup analysis showed that patients prescribed ≥90 mg/day MED in the QI compared to comparison clinics improved urine drug screening rates (38.8% vs 19.1%, p = 0.02), but not other outcomes (p ≥ 0.05).ConclusionsAugmenting routine policy implementation with targeted QI intervention, delivered to volunteer clinic staff, did not additionally improve clinic-level, opioid guideline-concordant care metrics. However, the observed effect sizes suggested this approach may be effective, especially in higher-risk patients, if broadly implemented.Trial registrationNot applicable.

Project description:BackgroundDespite many efforts, long wait times and overcrowding in emergency departments (EDs) have remained a significant health service issue in Canada. For several years, Canada has had one of the longest wait times among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. From a patient's perspective, this challenge has been described as "patients wait in pain or discomfort for hours before being seen at EDs." To overcome the challenge of increased wait times, we developed an innovative ED management platform called SurgeCon that was designed based on continuous quality improvement principles to maintain patient flow and mitigate the impact of patient surge on ED efficiency. The SurgeCon quality improvement intervention includes a protocol-driven software platform, restructures ED organization and workflow, and aims to establish a more patient-centric environment. We piloted SurgeCon at an ED in Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador, and found that there was a 32% reduction in ED wait times.ObjectiveThe primary objective of this trial is to determine the effects of SurgeCon on ED performance by assessing its impact on length of stay, the time to a physician's initial assessment, and the number of patients leaving the ED without being seen by a physician. The secondary objectives of this study are to evaluate SurgeCon's effects on patient satisfaction and patient-reported experiences with ED wait times and its ability to create better-value care by reducing the per-patient cost of delivering ED services.MethodsThe implementation of the intervention will be assessed using a comparative effectiveness-implementation hybrid design. This type of hybrid design is known to shorten the amount of time associated with transitioning interventions from being the focus of research to being used for practice and health care services. All EDs with 24/7 on-site physician support (category A hospitals) will be enrolled in a 31-month, pragmatic, stepped wedge cluster randomized trial. All clusters (hospitals) will start with a baseline period of usual care and will be randomized to determine the order and timing of transitioning to intervention care until all hospitals are using the intervention to manage and operationalize their EDs.ResultsData collection for this study is continuing. As of February 2022, a total of 570 randomly selected patients have participated in telephone interviews concerning patient-reported experiences and patient satisfaction with ED wait times. The first of the 4 EDs was randomly selected, and it is currently using SurgeCon's eHealth platform and applying efficiency principles that have been learned through training since September 2021. The second randomly selected site will begin intervention implementation in winter 2022.ConclusionsBy assessing the impact of SurgeCon on ED services, we hope to be able to improve wait times and create better-value ED care in this health care context.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04789902; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04789902.International registered report identifier (irrid)DERR1-10.2196/30454.

Project description:ImportanceInfections and complications following cesarean delivery are a significant source of maternal mortality in Ethiopia.ObjectiveTo study the effectiveness of a program to strengthen compliance with perioperative standards and reduce postoperative complications following cesarean delivery.Design, setting, and participantsThis stepped-wedge cluster randomized clinical trial included patients undergoing cesarean delivery from August 24, 2021, to January 31, 2023, at 9 hospitals organized into 5 clusters in Ethiopia.InterventionClean Cut, a multimodal surgical quality improvement program that includes process-mapping 6 perioperative standards and creating site-specific, systems-level improvements. The control period was the period before implementation of the intervention.Main outcomes and measuresThe primary end point was surgical site infection rate, and secondary end points were maternal mortality and perinatal mortality and a composite outcome of infections and both mortality outcomes. All were assessed at 30 days postoperatively in the intervention and control groups, adjusting for clustering and demographics. Compliance with standards and the relationship between compliance and outcomes were also compared between the 2 arms.ResultsAmong 9755 women undergoing cesarean delivery, 5099 deliveries (52.3%) occurred during the control period (2722 emergency cases [53.4%]) and 4656 (47.7%) during the intervention period (2346 emergency cases [50.4%]). Mean (SD) patient age was 27.04 (0.05) years. Thirty-day follow-up was completed for 5153 patients (52.8%). No significant reduction in infection rates was detected after the intervention (OR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.55-1.27; P = .40). Intraoperative infection prevention standards improved significantly in the intervention arm vs control arm for compliance with at least 5 of the 6 standards (odds ratio [OR], 2.95; 95% CI, 2.40-3.62; P < .001). Regardless of trial arm, high compliance was associated with reduced odds of maternal (OR, 0.32; 95% CI, 0.11-0.93; P = .04) and perinatal (OR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.47-0.89; P = .008) mortality.Conclusions and relevanceIn this stepped-wedge cluster randomized clinical trial of patients undergoing cesarean delivery, no significant reductions in surgical site infections were observed. However, compliance with perioperative standards improved following the intervention.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04812522; Pan-African Clinical Trials Registry Identifier: PACTR202108717887402.

Project description:BackgroundEvidence for the effectiveness of continuous quality improvement (CQI) in resource-poor settings is very limited. We aimed to establish the effects of CQI on quality of antenatal HIV care in primary care clinics in rural South Africa.Methods and findingsWe conducted a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing CQI to usual standard of antenatal care (ANC) in 7 nurse-led, public-sector primary care clinics-combined into 6 clusters-over 8 steps and 19 months. Clusters randomly switched from comparator to intervention on pre-specified dates until all had rolled over to the CQI intervention. Investigators and clusters were blinded to randomisation until 2 weeks prior to each step. The intervention was delivered by trained CQI mentors and included standard CQI tools (process maps, fishbone diagrams, run charts, Plan-Do-Study-Act [PDSA] cycles, and action learning sessions). CQI mentors worked with health workers, including nurses and HIV lay counsellors. The mentors used the standard CQI tools flexibly, tailored to local clinic needs. Health workers were the direct recipients of the intervention, whereas the ultimate beneficiaries were pregnant women attending ANC. Our 2 registered primary endpoints were viral load (VL) monitoring (which is critical for elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV [eMTCT] and the health of pregnant women living with HIV) and repeat HIV testing (which is necessary to identify and treat women who seroconvert during pregnancy). All pregnant women who attended their first antenatal visit at one of the 7 study clinics and were ≥18 years old at delivery were eligible for endpoint assessment. We performed intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses using modified Poisson generalised linear mixed effects models. We estimated effect sizes with time-step fixed effects and clinic random effects (Model 1). In separate models, we added a nested random clinic-time step interaction term (Model 2) or individual random effects (Model 3). Between 15 July 2015 and 30 January 2017, 2,160 participants with 13,212 ANC visits (intervention n = 6,877, control n = 6,335) were eligible for ITT analysis. No adverse events were reported. Median age at first booking was 25 years (interquartile range [IQR] 21 to 30), and median parity was 1 (IQR 0 to 2). HIV prevalence was 47% (95% CI 42% to 53%). In Model 1, CQI significantly increased VL monitoring (relative risk [RR] 1.38, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.57, p < 0.001) but did not improve repeat HIV testing (RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.88 to 1.13, p = 0.958). These results remained essentially the same in both Model 2 and Model 3. Limitations of our study include that we did not establish impact beyond the duration of the relatively short study period of 19 months, and that transition steps may have been too short to achieve the full potential impact of the CQI intervention.ConclusionsWe found that CQI can be effective at increasing quality of primary care in rural Africa. Policy makers should consider CQI as a routine intervention to boost quality of primary care in rural African communities. Implementation research should accompany future CQI use to elucidate mechanisms of action and to identify factors supporting long-term success.Trial registrationThis trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration number NCT02626351.

Project description:ImportanceMany patients with cancer who would benefit from psychosocial care do not receive it. Implementation strategies may favor the integration of psychosocial care into practice and improve patient outcomes.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of the Humanization in Cancer Care (HuCare) Quality Improvement Strategy vs standard care as improvement of at least 1 of 2 domains (emotional or social function) of patient health-related quality of life at baseline and 3 months. A key secondary aim included investigation of the long-term effect.Design, setting, and participantsHuCare2 was a multicenter, incomplete, stepped-wedge cluster randomized clinical trial, conducted from May 30, 2016, to August 28, 2019, in three 5-center clusters of cancer centers representative of hospital size and geographic location in Italy. The study was divided into 5 equally spaced epochs. Implementation sequence was defined by a blinded statistician; the nature of the intervention precluded blinding for clinical staff. Participants included consecutive adult outpatients with newly diagnosed cancer of any type and stage starting medical cancer treatment.InterventionsThe HuCare Quality Improvement Strategy comprised (1) clinician communication training, (2) on-site visits for context analysis and problem-solving, and (3) implementation of 6 evidence-based recommendations.Main outcomes and measuresThe primary outcome was the difference between the means of changes of individual scores in emotional or social functions of health-related quality of life detected at baseline and 3-month follow-up (within each group) and during the postintervention epoch compared with control periods (between groups). Long-term effect of the intervention (at 12 months) was assessed as a secondary outcome. Intention-to-treat analysis was used.ResultsA total of 762 patients (475 [62.3%] women) were enrolled (400 HuCare Quality Improvement Strategy and 362 usual care); mean (SD) age was 61.4 (13.1) years. The HuCare Quality Improvement Strategy significantly improved emotional function during treatment (odds ratio [OR], 1.13; 95% CI, 1.04-1.22; P = .008) but not social function (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.89-1.09; P = .80). Effect on emotional function persisted at 12 months (OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.00-1.10; P = .04).Conclusions and relevanceIn this trial, the HuCare Quality Improvement Strategy significantly improved the emotional function aspect of health-related quality of life during cancer treatment and at 12 months, indicating a change in clinician behavior and in ward organization. These findings support the need for strategies to introduce psychosocial care; however, more research is needed on factors that may maximize the effects.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03008993.

Project description:IntroductionThe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a highly relevant entity in critical care with mortality rates of 40%. Despite extensive scientific efforts, outcome-relevant therapeutic measures are still insufficiently practised at the bedside. Thus, there is a clear need to adhere to early diagnosis and sufficient therapy in ARDS, assuring lower mortality and multiple organ failure.Methods and analysisIn this quality improvement strategy (QIS), a decision support system as a mobile application (ASIC app), which uses available clinical real-time data, is implemented to support physicians in timely diagnosis and improvement of adherence to established guidelines in the treatment of ARDS. ASIC is conducted on 31 intensive care units (ICUs) at 8 German university hospitals. It is designed as a multicentre stepped-wedge cluster randomised QIS. ICUs are combined into 12 clusters which are randomised in 12 steps. After preparation (18 months) and a control phase of 8 months for all clusters, the first cluster enters a roll-in phase (3 months) that is followed by the actual QIS phase. The remaining clusters follow in month wise steps. The coprimary key performance indicators (KPIs) consist of the ARDS diagnostic rate and guideline adherence regarding lung-protective ventilation. Secondary KPIs include the prevalence of organ dysfunction within 28 days after diagnosis or ICU discharge, the treatment duration on ICU and the hospital mortality. Furthermore, the user acceptance and usability of new technologies in medicine are examined. To show improvements in healthcare of patients with ARDS, differences in primary and secondary KPIs between control phase and QIS will be tested.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval was obtained from the independent Ethics Committee (EC) at the RWTH Aachen Faculty of Medicine (local EC reference number: EK 102/19) and the respective data protection officer in March 2019. The results of the ASIC QIS will be presented at conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.Trial registration numberDRKS00014330.

Dataset Information

The effect of a complementary e-learning course on implementation of a quality improvement project regarding care for elderly patients: a stepped wedge trial.

Background

Methods and design

Setting

Discussion

Trial registration

Publications

The effect of a complementary e-learning course on implementation of a quality improvement project regarding care for elderly patients: a stepped wedge trial.

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