Background: Audit and feedback is a commonly used strategy to improve performance among providers. Most prior studies on its efficacy were done in the outpatient setting and showed a modest benefit. Certain factors, such as clear targets and repeated frequency of feedback may increase the likelihood of improved performance; however, there is still no consensus [...]

Background: High value care is a key priority in healthcare, but strategies are needed to empower frontline clinicians to work with organizational leadership to reduce healthcare costs and improve care.   Purpose: Caring Wisely (CW) is a program we developed that is designed to engage frontline clinicians and staff, connect them with implementation experts, and [...]

Background: Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (AECOPD) is the third leading cause of readmissions and is now included in the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). Our institution developed an inter-professional program aimed at reducing all-cause 30-day readmissions for patients admitted with AECOPD. Methods: We iteratively developed and piloted our inter-professional COPD HRRP [...]

Background: High value care is a key priority in healthcare, but strategies are needed to empower frontline clinicians to work with organizational leadership to reduce healthcare costs and improve care.   Purpose: Caring Wisely (CW) is a program we developed that is designed to engage frontline clinicians and staff, connect them with implementation experts, and [...]

Background: Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (AECOPD) is the third leading cause of readmissions and is now included in the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). Our institution developed an inter-professional program aimed at reducing all-cause 30-day readmissions for patients admitted with AECOPD. Methods: We iteratively developed and piloted our inter-professional COPD HRRP [...]

Background: Audit and feedback is a commonly used strategy to improve performance among providers. Most prior studies on its efficacy were done in the outpatient setting and showed a modest benefit. Certain factors, such as clear targets and repeated frequency of feedback may increase the likelihood of improved performance; however, there is still no consensus [...]

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) program has placed a much-needed spotlight on the role of resident physicians in patient safety (PS) and quality improvement (QI). Medical school training in PS/QI is highly variable and our residents received very limited formal training in PS/QI prior to the intervention [...]

Background: In 2014, UCLA Health embarked on a journey to train and inspire the future generation of medicine. The Healthcare Improvement & iNnovation in Quality (THINQ) Collaborative aims to radically shape care delivery by building transformative interdisciplinary platforms to catalyze and nurture innovation at UCLA that lead to large-scale impact. Further, THINQ aspires to engage [...]

Background: Accurate and timely documentation is essential for patient care, as well as the appropriate reflection of patient complexity and severity of illness. Most hospitals utilize a traditional retrospective or contemporaneous physician-query strategy to ensure documentation accurately impacts performance data, reputation/ranking, and reimbursement.  Purpose: Here, we highlight three unique, hospitalist-driven interventions to support accurate documentation [...]

Background: In-hospital mortality attributable to sepsis is higher than overall population mortality (Gaieski DF et al, 2013; Dombrovskiy VY, 2007). Furthermore, the rates of severe sepsis are increasing annually (Dombrovskiy VY,2007). Early detection and early intervention have been shown effective at reducing mortality among in-patients (Dombrovskiy VY, 2007). Internal data suggests that the identification of [...]