För patienterna är det viktigt att övergången mellan olika vårdgivare sker på ett tryggt och säkert sätt som underlättar den fortsatta vården. Forskning visar att patienternas delaktighet i förberedelser inför utskrivning från sjukhus ofta brister. Sjuksköterskorna på vårdavdelningen upplevde att arbetet inför utskrivning var stressigt.   Syftet med förbättringsarbetet var att identifiera och implementera åtgärder som möjliggör en välfungerande och trygg utskrivningsprocess. Syftet med studien av förbättringsarbetet var att identifiera faktorer av betydelse för implementeringen av förbättringsåtgärder på en vårdavdelning.Metoden för genomförande av förbättringsarbetet följde principerna för förbättringsrampen. Studien av förbättringsarbetet var en fallstudie med explorativ ansats. Data om personalens erfarenheter av förbättringsarbetet inhämtades med intervjuer som analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys.   Resultatet av förbättringsarbetet visade inte någon mätbar förbättring av utskrivningsprocessen. Resultatet av studien visade att vårdpersonalen ändå upplevde förbättringar och att motivation och praktiska förutsättningar för att delta var viktiga för resultatet.   Slutsatsen var att förbättringsarbetet var värdefullt och medförde ett lärande, även om mätbara mål inte uppnåddes. Ledningsens engagemang var viktigt för att skapa möjligheter för personalen att delta i förbättringsarbete. Valet av förbättringsområde hade stor betydelse för resultatet då det påverkade de medverkandes motivation. / "It feels great when you can improve things for the patients" Safe hospital discharge, a case study of an improvement work   An important aspect of health care, from the patient’s perspective, is to achieve smooth and efficient transitions between different health care providers. Current research shows that the patient’s involvement in discharge planning before leaving the hospital is often deficient. Furthermore, nurses at the hospital ward experience discharge planning as stressful work.   The aim of the improvement work was to identify and implement measures for improving discharge process. The method underlying this improvement work is referred to as “the improvement ramp”, and an exploratory case study was carried out. Data was collected, by interviewing health professionals, and analysed using qualitative content analysis.   The results of the implemented measures show no measurable improvements in the discharge process. However, the interviews indicate that health professionals experienced improvements in their daily routines. The conclusion was that the improvement work was valuable and resulted in a developed learning although the measurements didn’t capture all results. The choice of area for improvement was of great importance because it affected the participants' motivation.

Den svenska hälso- och sjukvården står inför utmaningen med en ökande och åldrande befolkning. Överdiagnostisering och under-, över- och felanvändning av diagnostisk service bidrar till de ekonomiska utmaningarna. Utilization management kan bidra till att komma tillrätta med användningen. I ett samarbetsprojekt mellan Rådet för värdeskapande användning av Medicinsk diagnostik i Region Jönköpings län och en vårdcentral genomfördes ett förbättringsarbete för att minska förbrukningen av laboratorieanalyser; målet var att komma till rätta med över-, under och felanvändning. Parallellt genomfördes en studie med syftet att utvärdera effekter av fem insatser rådet gjort. Studien genomfördes med en mixad metod med förklarande sekventiell design. Då förbättringsarbetet aldrig tog fart i verksamheten, på grund av chefsomsättning, kan inga resultat redovisas. Studien påvisar få förändringar i beställningsmönster. I intervjuerna med remittenterna framkommer temat att vilja arbeta med beställningsmönster och förändringar nära verksamheten. Remittenterna efterfrågar tekniska lösningar och dialog med de diagnostiska specialiteterna. Litteraturen stödjer hittills gjorda insatser men i studien ses få resultat. Tidigare insatser har varit engångsföreteelser. Genom att nyttja förbättringskunskapen och arbeta med frågorna närmare remittenternas vardag kan engagemang skapas varpå förändringen lättare anammas. Kombinationen av förbättringsarbeten på mikrosystemnivå med stöd och förbättringar på mesonivå kommer sannolikt att bidra till framgång med värdeskapande användning. / Swedish healthcare is facing the challenge of an increasing and aging population making cost reductions necessary. Some of the challenges are based around the over diagnosis and the misutilisation of laboratory analysis. Utilisation management could contribute to proper use. A quality improvement project was performed as a collaboration between a primary care centre and the Council of Value-creating use of Medical Diagnosis. The aim was to reduce the number of analyses and misuse of laboratory analysis. A mixed method study was conducted with the aim to evaluate five interventions made by the Council. Because the improvement project never really started, results are limited. Interviews with physicians revealed that the studied units are open for dialogue with the diagnostic specialties and willing to change ordering patterns but few changes were detected. The literature supports the interventions made so far but few results are shown. One reason might be that previous efforts have been isolated events. By using the knowledge of quality improvement and bringing the questions closer to the units’, change might be easier to embrace. The combination of quality improvement in the microsystems with support and improvements in mesosystems will probably contribute to success.

The Georgia Department of Public Health has been engaged in a registry-based quality improvement initiative to monitor and improve the quality of stroke care. It is important to evaluate effectiveness of the quality improvement initiative in order to expand the effort to other sites or disease conditions. The studies, included in this dissertation, addressed whether acute ischemic stroke patients cared for by hospitals participating in the Georgia Coverdell Acute Stroke Registry (GCASR) had a better survival than those treated at other facilities, assessed whether quality of care as measured by nationally accepted ten performance measures is associated with improved patient outcome and evaluated the impact of intravenous alteplase treatment on 1-year mortality. Three data sources – GCASR, Georgia Discharge Data System and the death data – were used for analyses. These data sources were linked applying both a hierarchical deterministic and a probabilistic linkage methods. Survival after stroke incident was analyzed using the extended Cox proportional hazard model. Generalized estimating equation (glimmix procedure) and conditional logistic regression were applied, respectively, to assess the association of quality of care and intravenous alteplase use with 1-year mortality. Acute ischemic stroke patients treated at nonparticipating facilities had a hazard ratio for death of 1.14 (95% confidence interval, 1.03–1.26; p-value = .01) after the first week of admission compared with patients cared for by hospitals participating in the registry. Among patients treated in GCASR-participating hospitals, patients who received the lowest and intermediate quality care respectively had a 3.94 (95%CI: 3.27, 4.75; p-value <0.0001) and a 1.38 (95%CI: 1.12, 1.62; p-value=0.002) times higher odds of dying in one year compared to those who got the best quality stroke care. Patients who were eligible but did not receive IV alteplase had a 1.49 (95%CI: 1.09-2.04; p-value=0.01) times higher odds of dying within one year than those who were treated with the thrombolytic agent. The results strongly suggest that registry-based quality improvement effort has brought significant improvements in ischemic stroke patients’ outcomes. Therefore, it is critical that hospitals adopt a quality improvement strategy to change the process of care delivery for a better patient outcome.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a complex health condition that impacts multiple organ systems and contributes to both acute and chronic health problems. In the United States (U.S.), T2DM is a growing health concern with increasing prevalence among both adult and pediatric populations (American Diabetes Association [ADA], 2015; Dea, 2011). Developing a comprehensive plan of care that incorporates a multifaceted treatment and prevention plan is necessary to address this growing health concern and reduce overall morbidity and mortality. Problem: The Edmund Primary Care (EPC) practice data for routine annual diabetic foot exams, annual eye exams, annual urine microalbumin, smoking cessation education and recommendations for pneumococcal polysaccharide do not meet the ADA (American Diabetes Association, 2015) recommendations for patients with T2DM.Design: Quality improvement (QI) project applying the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle to develop a process change to improve diabetic preventative care measures for hemoglobin A1C, urine microalbumin, diabetic foot exams, and optometry referrals. Setting: A small, nurse practitioner owned, family practice clinic targeting patients 18 years and older with a diagnosis of T2DM.Intervention: A fishbone diagram to conduct a root cause analysis led to identification of key factors contributing to the problem. A comprehensive process change integrating a Diabetic Assessment Flow Sheet (DAFS) and diabetic foot exam sheet was developed to address the problem. Expected Outcome: Increase in rates of completion to at least 90% over eight weeks. Results: Analyzed with run charts demonstrating an increase in rates of completion to 100% for A1C, urine microalbumin, diabetic foot exams, and optometry referrals. A positive percent of change for each measure is as follows: A1C 7%; urine microalbumin 43%; diabetic foot exams 150%; and referrals to optometrist 43%. Significance: This QI project emphasizes the importance of implementing a system to evaluate the quality of care being delivered. It also highlights the usefulness of the PDSA cycle as a method to implementing quality improvement measures in health care. Lastly, this QI project demonstrated the effectiveness of flow sheets in improving the quality of care delivered to patients with T2DM.

Nature of the inquiry: My research inquiry investigated how qualities of personal interaction shape and affect the promotion of research utilisation for quality improvement in the US healthcare sector. The research investigated my own professional practice of consulting, teaching, and research regarding the improvement of healthcare practices and outcomes. Efforts to improve the quality of healthcare services are often difficult to realise and sustain. The quality improvement movement in the USA and elsewhere has not conducted much self-examination of its own processes for sources of these perennially problematic results. Relevance: The quality of healthcare services can be readily understood as having consequences of life or death, wellness or suffering. Healthcare expenditures in the USA are estimated at 16% of GDP and over 9% in the UK. Improving healthcare quality improvement efforts is a matter of profound human and social significance. Approach: The DMan research methodology is a reflexively aware process conducted as a cohort and as small learning groups of researchers during the three-year programme. The research inquiry used the complex responsive process of relating theory of learning as emergent changes of meaning or, equivalently, knowledge. As a social science of qualities, it uses the qualities of human interaction as the unit of analysis. The research utilised an interdisciplinary approach drawing upon: healthcare quality improvement literature; organizational discourse studies; research on strategy as practice; performance management; communications theories; the theory of mindful learning; interpersonal neurobiology; figurational sociology; and American pragmatist philosophy. The methodology employs a mindful reflexivity research strategy related to concepts from mindful learning and social neuroscience literature. Central methods included iterative peer and supervisor debriefing and iterative reflexive narrative practice. Findings: A contribution is made to the healthcare literature by describing how ordinary qualities of social coordination dynamics affect the promoters of healthcare research, not just potential users of research. A contribution is made to professional practice by providing a new perspective from which to analyse the sources of performance challenges prevalent in healthcare quality improvement efforts. The research findings indicate how applications of substantial organisational and social resources to promote research utilisation in the US health sector can be co-opted and dissipated away from ostensive substantive objectives. This occurs by research promoters‟ organizational discourse efforts to favourably shape power relating and other qualities of interaction of improvement initiatives. These efforts restrict the emergence of learning about the promoted changes.

Widespread unexplained variations in clinical practices and patient outcomes, together with rapidly growing availability of data, suggest major opportunities for improving the quality of medical care. One way that healthcare practitioners try to do that is by participating in organized healthcare quality improvement collaboratives (QICs). In QICs, teams of practitioners from different hospitals exchange information on clinical practices, with the aim of improving health outcomes at their own institutions. However, what works in one hospital may not work in others with different local contexts, due to non-linear interactions among various demographics, treatments, and practices. I.e., the clinical landscape is a complex socio-technical system that is difficult to search. In this dissertation we develop methods for analysis and modeling of complex systems, and apply them to the problem of healthcare improvement. Searching clinical landscapes is a multi-objective dynamic problem, as hospitals simultaneously optimize for multiple patient outcomes. We first discuss a general method we developed for finding which changes in features may be associated with various changes in outcomes at different points in time with different delays in affect. This method correctly inferred interactions on synthetic data, however the complexity and incompleteness of the real hospital dataset available to us limited the usefulness of this approach. We then discuss an agent-based model (ABM) of QICs to show that teams comprising individuals from similar institutions outperform those from more diverse institutions, under nearly all conditions, and that this advantage increases with the complexity of the landscape and the level of noise in assessing performance. We present data from a network of real hospitals that provides encouraging evidence of a high degree of similarity in clinical practices among hospitals working together in QIC teams. Based on model outcomes, we propose a secure virtual collaboration system that would allow hospitals to efficiently identify potentially better practices in use at other institutions similar to theirs, without any institutions having to sacrifice the privacy of their own data. To model the search for quality improvement in clinical fitness landscapes, we need benchmark landscapes with tunable feature interactions. NK landscapes have been the classic benchmarks for modeling landscapes with epistatic interactions, but the ruggedness is only tunable in discrete jumps. Walsh polynomials are more finely tunable than NK landscapes, but are only defined on binary alphabets and, in general, have unknown global maximum and minimum. We define a different subset of interaction models that we dub as NM landscapes. NM landscapes are shown to have smoothly tunable ruggedness and difficulty and known location and value of global maxima. With additional constraints, we can also determine the location and value of the global minima. The proposed NM landscapes can be used with alphabets of any arity, from binary to real-valued, without changing the complexity of the landscape. NM landscapes are thus useful models for simulating clinical landscapes with binary or real decision variables and varying number of interactions. NM landscapes permit proper normalization of fitnesses so that search results can be fairly averaged over different random landscapes with the same parameters, and fairly compared between landscapes with different parameters. In future work we plan to use NM landscapes as benchmarks for testing various algorithms that can discover epistatic interactions in real world datasets.

Background: Post anesthesia care unit (PACU) nurses provide patient care during the vulnerable postoperative period when patients are at greatest risk of experiencing respiratory management issues and postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs). In rural facilities such as Canyon Vista Medical Center (CVMC) in Sierra Vista, Arizona, limited staff and resource shortages can lead to suboptimal patient care conditions in the PACU setting. To compound the issue, PACU nurses in rural facilities rely on facility training and have little guidance on important patient care issues such as post anesthesia respiratory management. Quality improvement initiatives aimed at resolving knowledge deficits in settings such as these can improve both quality and patient safety via a more competent and educated PACU nursing staff. Purpose: To address an educational need among the CVMC PACU nursing staff with the implementation of a post anesthesia respiratory management educational intervention. Methods: A quasi-experimental one group pretest-posttest design using a targeted intervention based upon the knowledge to action (KTA) framework. The PACU setting was used to conduct the intervention with the nurse participants (N = 9). Descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon signed rank test were used to determine intervention efficacy. Intervention: One 75-minute educational intervention divided into three consecutive phases. Results: A significant improvement in the nurses’ knowledge (p < .05) and perception of understanding of PACU respiratory management following the intervention (p < .05).

INTRODUCTION: Asthma is the most prevalent chronic disease in children, disproportionately affecting children from racial or ethnic minority groups and low-income families. Boston Medical Center’s Pediatric Primary Care Center serves these patient populations predominantly from the surrounding neighborhoods. It has been found that there are gaps in asthma care including diagnosing asthma in infants and young children, under-prescribing of preventive medication in all age groups, and variable management of children with poorly controlled asthma. In alignment with the accountable care organization model, health care professionals at BMC are using evidence-based care and population-based approaches to reduce asthma morbidity and thus improve the quality of life for patients with asthma and their families. METHODS: A quality improvement initiative was conducted at BMC’s Pediatric Primary Care Center. The aim was to develop routine surveillance of asthma control for the clinic population in order to identify and intervene on patients who have poorly controlled asthma. The Asthma Control Test (ACT) and the Test for Respiratory and Asthma Control in Kids (TRACK) were adapted into practice as validated patient-parent-reported tools to use to assess asthma control at all primary care office visits. Process measure included the percentage of visits with a documented asthma control testing in the electronic medical record. Outcome measures included (1) percentage of patients with poorly controlled asthma presenting to the clinic, as indicated by low ACT/TRACK scores, and (2) percentage of visits with a documented provider action in response to low ACT/TRACK scores. Iterative Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles optimized results; process and outcome measures were analyzed on run charts for trends. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Patient-centered strategies for visits and population-based systems to analyze outcomes are effective at delivering quality care for BMC’s pediatric asthma patient population. Following the implementation of routine asthma control screening in primary care, the percentage of visits with documented ACT/TRACK scores went from a baseline of 8% to 86%. Week to week variation was mostly attributed to higher patient visit volume beginning in the Fall season when epidemiologically there is a substantially increased frequency of asthma exacerbations in children. A median of 23% of patients report poorly controlled asthma during their visit. The percent of visits with documented provider action increased from 87% to 95% during this quality improvement initiative, indicating that patients were receiving targeted care needs including medication management and asthma education in response to low ACT/TRACK scores. However, consistent and timely delivery of preventive care services continues to be a challenge, particularly for a clinic serving high-risk, underserved, and culturally diverse patient populations. / 2020-06-17T00:00:00Z

This thesis considers “Quality in Higher Education” from different points of view. The aim isto achieve continuous quality improvement in Engineering School of Boras University as acase study. In order to improve quality, the quality criteria and definitions in higher educationare discussed. Different improvement methods that have been successfully used to improvequality in Educational systems such as PDCA (Deming wheel) and EFQM (EuropeanFoundation for Quality Management) are shortly presented. These methods are applied inBoras University Engineering School to find out the roots problems and main barriers toimprove quality, and there are some different solutions suggested to implement in order toachieve continuous quality improvement in this especial department. Although this case isfocused on Boras University, the writer believes that the same methods and assessments canbe used in any kind of educational organizations.

A segurança do paciente tem sido considerada uma prioridade para a qualidade da assistência em saúde no mundo inteiro. Considerando que o paciente está continuamente exposto a riscos, eventos adversos e danos, as Infecções Relacionadas à Assistência à Saúde (IRAS) ganham destaque, seja pela sua incidência ou pelos danos que podem provocar. Dentre eles, a Pneumonia Associada à Ventilação Mecânica (PAV) acomete pacientes em Unidades de Terapia Intensiva (UTI) e causa inúmeros prejuízos ao paciente e às instituições. Este estudo teve como objetivo elaborar e implementar um protocolo de prevenção de PAV em uma UTI de um hospital do interior do Estado de Minas Gerais. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de intervenção em enfermagem, na qual foi utilizado o Modelo de Melhoria e o Ciclo PDSA, sendo realizado em quatro etapas: Etapa 1 - Coleta de informações e planejamento de ações (Plan); Etapa 2 - Desenho e implementação das intervenções (Do); Etapa 3: Análise dos resultados (Study); Etapa 4: Análise final dos resultados e proposição de ações corretivas (Act). Os resultados mostraram que as discussões com os enfermeiros possibilitaram a identificação de fatores associados à ocorrência de PAV na unidade e, posteriormente, a implementação das seguintes ações: realização de higiene oral com clorexidina, interrupção diária da sedação do paciente, posicionamento adequado do circuito de ventilação mecânica, elevação da cabeceira da cama em 30-45°, realização de tratamento profilático de tromboembolismo e a profilaxia de úlcera péptica, além de melhorar a higiene das mãos na unidade. A adesão dos profissionais quanto à realização destas ações aumentou após a terceira avaliação e foi verificada melhor comunicação entre as equipes de saúde após a implementação do protocolo. Conclui-se que os dados obtidos no presente estudo apontaram que o ciclo de melhoria realizado foi válido para promover a elaboração e a implementação de medidas de prevenção de PAV na UTI. Considera-se essencial, entretanto, a sistematização das avaliações na instituição por meio da adoção contínua de ciclos de melhoria, promovendo mudanças na cultura da organização e nas práticas de saúde e melhorando a qualidade do cuidado prestado ao paciente. / Patient safety has been considered a priority for the quality of health care worldwide. Considering that the patient is continually exposed to risks, adverse events and damages, Health Care-related Infections gain prominence, either because of their incidence or the damage they can cause. Among them, Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) affects patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU) and causes numerous damages to patients and institutions. The purpose of this study was to elaborate and implement a protocol for the prevention of VAP in an ICU of a hospital in the interior of the State of Minas Gerais. It is a nursing intervention research, in which the Improvement Model and the PDSA Cycle were used, being carried out in four stages: Step 1 -Data collection and planning of actions (Plan); Step 2 - Design and implementation of interventions (Do); Step 3: Analysis of results; Step 4: Final analysis of results and proposition of corrective actions (Act). The results showed that the discussions with the nurses enabled the identification of factors associated with the occurrence of VAP in the ICU and, later, the implementation of the following actions: oral hygiene with chlorhexidine, daily interruption of patient sedation, adequate positioning of the circuit mechanical ventilation, elevation of the the bed by 30-45 °, prophylactic treatment of thromboembolism and prophylaxis of peptic ulcer, in addition to improving hand hygiene in the unit. The adherence of the professionals regarding the accomplishment of these actions increased after the third evaluation and it was verified a better communication between the health teams after the implementation of the protocol. It is concluded that the data obtained in the present study pointed out that the improvement cycle was valid to promote the elaboration and implementation of measures to prevent VAP in the ICU. It is considered essential, however, to systematize evaluations in the institution through the continuous adoption of improvement cycles, promoting changes in the organization\'s culture and health practices and improving the quality of care provided to the patient.