scholarly journals The myADHDportal.Com Improvement Program: An innovative quality improvement intervention for improving the quality of ADHD care among community-based pediatricians.

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery N. Epstein ◽  
Joshua M. Langberg ◽  
Philip K. Lichtenstein ◽  
Rebecca C. Kolb ◽  
John O. Simon
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e18260-e18260
Author(s):  
Mike Nguyen ◽  
Alysson Wann ◽  
Babak Tamjid ◽  
Arvind Sahu ◽  
Javier Torres

e18260 Background: The therapeutic landscape in medical oncology continues to expand significantly. Newer therapies, especially immunotherapy, offer the hope of profound and durable responses with more tolerable side effect profiles. Integrating this information into the decision making process is challenging for patients and oncologists. Systemic anticancer treatment within the last thirty days of life is a key quality of care indicator and is one parameter used in the assessment of aggressiveness of care. Methods: A retrospective review of medical records of all patients previously treated at Goulburn Valley Health oncology department who died between 1 January 2015 and 30 June 2018 was conducted. Information collected related to patient demographics, diagnosis, treatment, and hospital care within the last 30 days of life. These results were presented to a hospital meeting and a quality improvement intervention program instituted. A second retrospective review of medical records of all patients who died between 1 July 2018 and 31 December 2018 was conducted in order to measure the effect of this intervention. Results: The initial audit period comprised 440 patients. 120 patients (27%) received treatment within the last 30 days of life. The re-audit period comprised 75 patients. 19 patients (25%) received treatment within the last 30 days of life. Treatment rates of chemotherapy reduced after the intervention in contrast to treatment rates of immunotherapy which increased. A separate analysis calculated the rate of mortality within 30 days of chemotherapy from the total number of patients who received chemotherapy was initially 8% and 2% in the re-audit period. Treatment within the last 30 days of life was associated with higher use of aggressive care such as emergency department presentation, hospitalisation, ICU admission and late hospice referral. Palliative care referral rates improved after the intervention. Conclusions: This audit demonstrated that a quality improvement intervention can impact quality of care indicators with reductions in the use of chemotherapy within the last 30 days of life. However, immunotherapy use increased which may be explained by increased access and perceived better tolerability.


Author(s):  
Gerald Craver ◽  
Amy Burkett ◽  
Karen Kimsey

A qualitative case study design employing focus groups was used to evaluate certified nursing assistant (CNA) (n = 26) and resident (n = 30) perceptions of the Virginia Gold Quality Improvement Program, a Medicaid funded 2-year quality improvement intervention piloted in five nursing facilities. As part of the program, the nursing facilities implemented quality improvement projects to develop supportive work environments in an effort to reduce CNA turnover and improve quality of care. Overall, the focus group participants viewed Virginia Gold positively and reported that CNA turnover decreased, while care quality improved during the program. These findings are supported by a previous Virginia Gold evaluation as well as by the results from a quantitative analysis of nursing facility CNA turnover and quality of care data and interviews with selected nursing facility management staff (n = 7) 1-year following the program’s culmination. A key finding from the management interviews is that the quality improvement projects became self-sustaining over time allowing all five nursing facilities to continue the projects without state funding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elysia Larson ◽  
Godfrey M Mbaruku ◽  
Jessica Cohen ◽  
Margaret E Kruk

Abstract Objective To test the success of a maternal healthcare quality improvement intervention in actually improving quality. Design Cluster-randomized controlled study with implementation evaluation; we randomized 12 primary care facilities to receive a quality improvement intervention, while 12 facilities served as controls. Setting Four districts in rural Tanzania. Participants Health facilities (24), providers (70 at baseline; 119 at endline) and patients (784 at baseline; 886 at endline). Interventions In-service training, mentorship and supportive supervision and infrastructure support. Main outcome measures We measured fidelity with indictors of quality and compared quality between intervention and control facilities using difference-in-differences analysis. Results Quality of care was low at baseline: the average provider knowledge test score was 46.1% (range: 0–75%) and only 47.9% of women were very satisfied with delivery care. The intervention was associated with an increase in newborn counseling (β: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.13, 1.35) but no evidence of change across 17 additional indicators of quality. On average, facilities reached 39% implementation. Comparing facilities with the highest implementation of the intervention to control facilities again showed improvement on only one of the 18 quality indicators. Conclusions A multi-faceted quality improvement intervention resulted in no meaningful improvement in quality. Evidence suggests this is due to both failure to sustain a high-level of implementation and failure in theory: quality improvement interventions targeted at the clinic-level in primary care clinics with weak starting quality, including poor infrastructure and low provider competence, may not be effective.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. e475-e479
Author(s):  
Samantha Bodner ◽  
Arpan Patel ◽  
Priya K. Gopalan

The purpose of this quality improvement study was to improve physician documentation of distress in medical records of hematology/oncology veteran patients at the Malcolm Randall Veteran Affairs (VA) Medical Center hematology/oncology fellows’ clinic in Gainesville, Florida. Before this intervention, the VA hematology/oncology fellows were not documenting patient distress in medical records. The quality improvement intervention was executed through the use of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles with an ultimate goal of 50% documentation rate. Physician charts were audited to investigate official documentation of distress in patient charts. Physician documentation of distress was 14% in the first PDSA cycle, 21% in the second PDSA cycle, and 36% in the third PDSA cycle. Additional data on distress in hematology/oncology veteran patients were collected using the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Distress Thermometer and Problem List for Patients. Analysis of findings indicated that 42% of 88 patients experienced distress. Findings also suggest that hematology/oncology veteran patients experience specific sources of distress, notably fatigue and pain. These patients have presumably undergone unique experiences that can result in distress that providers should follow-up with in medical charts. Although this intervention has proven challenging to fully implement, standardizing patient distress in patient medical records has the potential to improve the quality of care provided by hematology/oncology physicians.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Kwesi Manyeh ◽  
Tobias Chirwa ◽  
Rohit Ramaswamy ◽  
Frank Baiden ◽  
Latifat Ibisomi

Abstract Background Over a decade of implementing a global strategy to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in Ghana through mass drug administration, the disease is still being transmitted in 11 districts out of an initial 98 endemic districts identified in 2000. A context-specific evidence-based quality improvement intervention was implemented in the Bole District of Northern Ghana after an initial needs assessment to improve the lymphatic filariasis mass drug administration towards eliminating the disease. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the process and impact of the lymphatic filariasis context-specific evidence-based quality improvement intervention in the Bole District of Northern Ghana. Method A cross-sectional mixed methods study using the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) framework to evaluate the context-specific evidence-based quality improvement intervention was employed. Quantitative secondary data was extracted from the neglected tropical diseases database. A community survey was conducted with 446 randomly selected participants. Qualitative data were collected from 42 purposively selected health workers, chiefs/opinion leaders and community drug distributors in the study area. Results The evaluation findings showed an improvement in social mobilisation and sensitisation, knowledge about lymphatic filariasis and mass drug administration process, willingness to ingest the medication and adherence to the direct observation treatment strategy. We observed an increase in coverage ranging from 0.1 to 12.3% after implementing the intervention at the sub-district level and reducing self-reported adverse drug reaction. The level of reach, effectiveness and adoption at the district, sub-district and individual participants’ level suggest that the context-specific evidence-based quality improvement intervention is feasible to implement in lymphatic filariasis hotspot districts based on initial context-specific needs assessment. Conclusion The study provided the groundwork for future application of the RE-AIM framework to evaluate the implementation of context-specific evidence-based quality improvement intervention to improve lymphatic filariasis mass drug administration towards eliminating the disease as a public health problem.


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