Dataset Information

Improving quality of care through improved audit and feedback.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has led the industry in measuring facility performance as a critical element in improving quality of care, investing substantial resources to develop and maintain valid and cost-effective measures. The External Peer Review Program (EPRP) of the VA is the official data source for monitoring facility performance, used to prioritize the quality areas needing most attention. Facility performance measurement has significantly improved preventive and chronic care, as well as overall quality; however, much variability still exists in levels of performance across measures and facilities. Audit and feedback (A&F), an important component of effective performance measurement, can help reduce this variability and improve overall performance. Previous research suggests that VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) with high EPRP performance scores tend to use EPRP data as a feedback source. However, the manner in which EPRP data are used as a feedback source by individual providers as well as service line, facility, and network leadership is not well understood. An in-depth understanding of mental models, strategies, and specific feedback process characteristics adopted by high-performing facilities is thus urgently needed.This research compares how leaders of high, low, and moderately performing VAMCs use clinical performance data from the EPRP as a feedback tool to maintain and improve quality of care.

Methods

We will conduct a qualitative, grounded theory analysis of up to 64 interviews using a novel method of sampling primary care, facility, and Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) leadership at high-, moderate-, and low-performing facilities. We will analyze interviews for evidence of cross-facility differences in perceptions of performance data usefulness and strategies for disseminating performance data evaluating performance, with particular attention to timeliness, individualization, and punitiveness of feedback delivery.

Discussion

Most research examining feedback to improve provider and facility performance lacks a detailed understanding of the elements of effective feedback. This research will highlight the elements most commonly used at high-performing facilities and identify additional features of their successful feedback strategies not previously identified. Armed with this information, practices can implement more effective A&F interventions to improve quality of care.

SUBMITTER: Hysong SJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3462705 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Improving quality of care through improved audit and feedback.

Hysong Sylvia J SJ Teal Cayla R CR Khan Myrna J MJ Haidet Paul P

Implementation science : IS 20120518

<h4>Background</h4>The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has led the industry in measuring facility performance as a critical element in improving quality of care, investing substantial resources to develop and maintain valid and cost-effective measures. The External Peer Review Program (EPRP) of the VA is the official data source for monitoring facility performance, used to prioritize the quality areas needing most attention. Facility performance measurement has significantly improved prevent ...[more]

PMID: 22607640

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Project description:BackgroundHealth care delivery organizations lack evidence-based strategies for using quality measurement data to improve performance. Audit and feedback (A&F), the delivery of clinical performance summaries to providers, demonstrates the potential for large effects on clinical practice but is currently implemented as a blunt one size fits most intervention. Each provider in a care setting typically receives a performance summary of identical metrics in a common format despite the growing recognition that precisionizing interventions hold significant promise in improving their impact. A precision approach to A&F prioritizes the display of information in a single metric that, for each recipient, carries the highest value for performance improvement, such as when the metric's level drops below a peer benchmark or minimum standard for the first time, thereby revealing an actionable performance gap. Furthermore, precision A&F uses an optimal message format (including framing and visual displays) based on what is known about the recipient and the intended gist meaning being communicated to improve message interpretation while reducing the cognitive processing burden. Well-established psychological principles, frameworks, and theories form a feedback intervention knowledge base to achieve precision A&F. From an informatics perspective, precision A&F requires a knowledge-based system that enables mass customization by representing knowledge configurable at the group and individual levels.ObjectiveThis study aims to implement and evaluate a demonstration system for precision A&F in anesthesia care and to assess the effect of precision feedback emails on care quality and outcomes in a national quality improvement consortium.MethodsWe propose to achieve our aims by conducting 3 studies: a requirements analysis and preferences elicitation study using human-centered design and conjoint analysis methods, a software service development and implementation study, and a cluster randomized controlled trial of a precision A&F service with a concurrent process evaluation. This study will be conducted with the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group, a national anesthesia quality improvement consortium with >60 member hospitals in >20 US states. This study will extend the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group quality improvement infrastructure by using existing data and performance measurement processes.ResultsThe proposal was funded in September 2021 with a 4-year timeline. Data collection for Aim 1 began in March 2022. We plan for a 24-month trial timeline, with the intervention period of the trial beginning in March 2024.ConclusionsThe proposed aims will collectively demonstrate a precision feedback service developed using an open-source technical infrastructure for computable knowledge management. By implementing and evaluating a demonstration system for precision feedback, we create the potential to observe the conditions under which feedback interventions are effective.International registered report identifier (irrid)PRR1-10.2196/34990.

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Project description:BackgroundTuberculosis screening of people living with HIV (PLHIV) can contribute to early tuberculosis diagnosis and improved patient outcomes. Evidence-based guidelines for tuberculosis screening are available, but literature assessing their implementation and the quality of clinical practice is scarce.ObjectivesTo assess tuberculosis screening practices and the effectiveness of audit and performance feedback to improve quality of tuberculosis screening at HIV care clinics in Ghana.DesignHealthcare providers at 10 large HIV care clinics prospectively registered patient consultations during May and October 2014, before and after a performance feedback intervention in August 2014. The outcomes of interest were overall tuberculosis suspicion rate during consultations and provider adherence to the International Standards for Tuberculosis Care and the World Health Organizations' guidelines for symptom-based tuberculosis screening among PLHIV.ResultsTwenty-one healthcare providers registered a total of 2,666 consultations; 1,368 consultations before and 1,298 consultations after the feedback intervention. Tuberculosis suspicion rate during consultation increased from 12.6 to 20.9% after feedback (odds ratio, OR 1.83; 95% confidence interval, CI: 1.09-3.09). Before feedback, sputum smear microscopy was requested for 58.7% of patients with suspected tuberculosis, for 47.2% of patients with cough ?2 weeks, and for 27.5% of patients with a positive World Health Organization (WHO) symptom screen (any of current cough, fever, weight loss or night sweats). After feedback, patients with a positive WHO symptom screen were more likely to be suspected of tuberculosis (OR 2.21; 95% CI: 1.19-4.09) and referred for microscopy (OR 2.71; 95% CI: 1.25-5.86).ConclusionsA simple prospective audit tool identified flaws in clinical practices for tuberculosis screening of PLHIV. There was no systematic identification of people with suspected active tuberculosis. We found low initial tuberculosis suspicion rate compounded by low referral rates of relevant patients for sputum smear microscopy. Adherence to recommended standards and guidelines for tuberculosis screening improved after performance feedback.

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Project description:BackgroundWe evaluated the impact of the pharmacist-led Safety Medication dASHboard (SMASH) intervention on medication safety in primary care.Methods and findingsSMASH comprised (1) training of clinical pharmacists to deliver the intervention; (2) a web-based dashboard providing actionable, patient-level feedback; and (3) pharmacists reviewing individual at-risk patients, and initiating remedial actions or advising general practitioners on doing so. It was implemented in 43 general practices covering a population of 235,595 people in Salford (Greater Manchester), UK. All practices started receiving the intervention between 18 April 2016 and 26 September 2017. We used an interrupted time series analysis of rates (prevalence) of potentially hazardous prescribing and inadequate blood-test monitoring, comparing observed rates post-intervention to extrapolations from a 24-month pre-intervention trend. The number of people registered to participating practices and having 1 or more risk factors for being exposed to hazardous prescribing or inadequate blood-test monitoring at the start of the intervention was 47,413 (males: 23,073 [48.7%]; mean age: 60 years [standard deviation: 21]). At baseline, 95% of practices had rates of potentially hazardous prescribing (composite of 10 indicators) between 0.88% and 6.19%. The prevalence of potentially hazardous prescribing reduced by 27.9% (95% CI 20.3% to 36.8%, p < 0.001) at 24 weeks and by 40.7% (95% CI 29.1% to 54.2%, p < 0.001) at 12 months after introduction of SMASH. The rate of inadequate blood-test monitoring (composite of 2 indicators) reduced by 22.0% (95% CI 0.2% to 50.7%, p = 0.046) at 24 weeks; the change at 12 months (23.5%) was no longer significant (95% CI -4.5% to 61.6%, p = 0.127). After 12 months, 95% of practices had rates of potentially hazardous prescribing between 0.74% and 3.02%. Study limitations include the fact that practices were not randomised, and therefore unmeasured confounding may have influenced our findings.ConclusionsThe SMASH intervention was associated with reduced rates of potentially hazardous prescribing and inadequate blood-test monitoring in general practices. This reduction was sustained over 12 months after the start of the intervention for prescribing but not for monitoring of medication. There was a marked reduction in the variation in rates of hazardous prescribing between practices.

Dataset Information

Improving quality of care through improved audit and feedback.

Background

Methods

Discussion

Publications

Improving quality of care through improved audit and feedback.

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