Background

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services established the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program in 2009 to stimulate the adoption of EHRs. One component of the program requires eligible providers to implement clinical decision support (CDS) interventions that can improve performance on one or more quality measures pre-selected for each specialty. Because the unique decision-making challenges and existing HIT capabilities vary widely across specialties, the development of meaningful objectives for CDS within such programs must be supported by deliberative analysis.

Design

We developed a conceptual framework and protocol that combines evidence review with expert opinion to elicit clinically meaningful objectives for CDS directly from specialists. The framework links objectives for CDS to specialty-specific performance gaps while ensuring that a workable set of CDS opportunities are available to providers to address each performance gap. Performance gaps may include those with well-established quality measures but also priorities identified by specialists based on their clinical experience. Moreover, objectives are not constrained to performance gaps with existing CDS technologies, but rather may include those for which CDS tools might reasonably be expected to be developed in the near term, for example, by the beginning of Stage 3 of the EHR Incentive program. The protocol uses a modified Delphi expert panel process to elicit and prioritize CDS meaningful use objectives. Experts first rate the importance of performance gaps, beginning with a candidate list generated through an environmental scan and supplemented through nominations by panelists. For the highest priority performance gaps, panelists then rate the extent to which existing or future CDS interventions, characterized jointly as "CDS opportunities," might impact each performance gap and the extent to which each CDS opportunity is compatible with specialists' clinical workflows. The protocol was tested by expert panels representing four clinical specialties: oncology, orthopedic surgery, interventional cardiology, and pediatrics.

Background

A decade ago, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement pioneered a quality improvement (QI) campaign, leveraging organizational and personal social networks to disseminate new practices. There have been few rigorous studies of the QI campaign approach.

Methods

Project JOINTS (Joining Organizations IN Tackling SSIs) engaged a network of state-based organizations and professionals in a 6-month QI campaign promoting adherence to three new evidence-based practices known to reduce the risk of infection after joint replacement. We conducted a cluster-randomized trial including ten states (five campaign states and five non-campaign states) with 188 hospitals providing joint replacement to Medicare. We measured adherence to the evidence-based practices before and after the campaign using a survey of surgical staff and a difference-in-difference design with multivariable adjustment to compare adherence to each of the relevant practices and an all-or-none composite measure of the three new practices.

Results

In the campaign states, there were statistically significant increases in adherence to the three new evidence-based practices promoted by the campaign. Compared to the non-campaign states, the relative increase in adherence to the three new practices in the campaign states ranged between 1.9 and 15.9 percentage points, but only one of these changes (pre-operative nasal screening for Staphylococcus aureus carriage and decolonization prior to surgery) was statistically significant (p < 0.05). On the all-or-none composite measure, adherence to all three evidence-based practices increased from 19.6 to 37.9% in the campaign states, but declined slightly in the comparison states, yielding a relative increase of 23 percentage points (p = 0.004). In the non-campaign states, changes in adherence were not statistically significant.

Conclusions

Within 6 months, in a cluster-randomized trial, a multi-state campaign targeting hospitals and professionals involved in surgical care and infection control was associated with an increase in adherence to evidence-based practices that can reduce surgical site infection.

Following the publication of the original article [1], it was brought to our attention that the title contained an error: "The Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Project JOINTS" was incorrectly included as "the Institute for Health Improvement's Project JOINTS". The title has been corrected to read: "Does a quality improvement campaign accelerate take-up of new evidence? A ten-state cluster-randomized controlled trial of the IHI's Project JOINTS". The corrected title has been included in this erratum and updated in the original article.

Background

Quality improvement (QI) campaigns appear to increase use of evidence-based practices, but their effect on health outcomes is less well studied.

Objective

To assess the effect of a multistate QI campaign (Project JOINTS, Joining Organizations IN Tackling SSIs) that used the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Rapid Spread Network to promote adoption of evidence-based surgical site infection (SSI) prevention practices.

Methods

We analysed rates of SSI among Medicare beneficiaries undergoing hip and knee arthroplasty during preintervention (May 2010 to April 2011) and postintervention (November 2011 to September 2013) periods in five states included in a multistate trial of the Project JOINTS campaign and five matched comparison states. We used generalised linear mixed effects models and a difference-in-differences approach to estimate changes in SSI outcomes.

Results

125 070 patients underwent hip arthroplasty in 405 hospitals in intervention states, compared with 131 787 in 525 hospitals in comparison states. 170 663 patients underwent knee arthroplasty in 397 hospitals in intervention states, compared with 196 064 in 518 hospitals in comparison states. After the campaign, patients in intervention states had a 15% lower odds of developing hip arthroplasty SSIs (OR=0.85, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.96, p=0.01) and a 12% lower odds of knee arthroplasty SSIs than patients in comparison states (OR=0.88, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.99, p=0.04).

Conclusions

A larger reduction of SSI rates following hip and knee arthroplasty was shown in intervention states than in matched control states.

Background

Prior studies using aggregated data suggest that better care coordination is associated with higher performance on measures of clinical care process; it is unclear whether this relationship reflects care coordination activities of health plans or physician practices.

Objective

Estimate within-plan relationships between beneficiary-reported care coordination measures and HEDIS measures of clinical process for the same individuals.

Design

Mixed-effect regression models in cross-sectional data.

Participants

2013 Medicare Advantage CAHPS respondents (n=152,069) with care coordination items linked to independently collected HEDIS data on clinical processes.

Main measures

Care coordination measures assessed follow-up, whether doctors had medical records during visits, whether doctors discussed medicines being taken, how informed doctors seemed about specialist care, and help received with managing care among different providers. HEDIS measures included mammography, colorectal cancer screening, cardiovascular LDL-C screening, controlling blood pressure, 5 diabetes care measures (LDL-C screening, retinal eye exam, nephropathy, blood sugar/HbA1c <9%, LCL-C<100 mg/dL), glaucoma screening in older adults, BMI assessment, osteoporosis management for women with a fracture, and rheumatoid arthritis therapy.

Key results

For 9 of the 13 HEDIS measures, within health plans, beneficiaries who reported better care coordination also received better clinical care (p<0.05) and none of the associations went in the opposite direction; HEDIS differences between those with excellent and poor coordination exceeded 5 percentage points for 7 measures. Nine measures had positive associations (breast cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening, cardiovascular care LDL-C screening, 4 of 5 diabetes care measures, osteoporosis management, and rheumatoid arthritis therapy).

Conclusions

Within health plans, beneficiaries who report better care coordination also received higher-quality clinical care, particularly for care processes that entail organizing patient care activities and sharing information among different healthcare providers. These results extend prior research showing that health plans with better beneficiary-reported care coordination achieved higher HEDIS performance scores.