A Multicenter Collaborative Effort to Reduce Preventable Patient Harm Due to Retained Surgical Items.

Background: Unintentional retention of surgical items is severe but preventable patient harm in surgical procedures. One multicenter health care organization experienced a harm event due to retained surgical items (RSIs) every eight days in 2019-2020. The research team sought to reduce the incidence of harm due to RSIs, improve near-miss reporting, and increase process reliability in operating rooms across the organization.

Improving Psychosocial Risk Assessment and Service Provision for Craniofacial Team Patients: A Quality Improvement Project.

To improve psychosocial risk assessment and service provision for children with craniofacial conditions presenting for annual interdisciplinary team visits. Institute for Healthcare quality improvement model. U.

Improving Pediatrician's Behavioral Health Competencies Through the Project ECHO Teleconsultation Model.

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a teleconsultation model for enhancing the treatment of underserved patients in primary care. Previous behavioral health (BH) adaptations of Project ECHO have primarily focused on adults or specific diagnoses and have relied on self-reported outcomes. The purpose of this pilot was to adapt Project ECHO to support pediatric primary care providers in addressing common BH needs and to conduct an initial evaluation of its effectiveness.

Quality Improvement and Behavior Analysis: A Dynamic Duo.

Behavior analysis as a discipline prides itself on the systematic use of consistent, measured observations to drive specific and clearly defined changes in behavior. The need for diversification of practice is becoming increasingly focused on the topic. We posit that one such area of growth for behavior analysts could be quality improvement (QI).

Timely Access to Mental Health Services for Patients with Pain.

Unlabelled: Efficient access to pediatric mental health services is a growing concern as the number of patients increases and outpaces efforts to expand services. This study outlines interventions implemented using quality improvement (QI) science and methodology to demonstrate how a clinic embedded in a large children's hospital can improve access to the first appointment for a population seeking pain management services.

Methods: A process improvement project started with a QI team, whose members designed interventions to change scheduling practices.

Writing Group Increases Quality Improvement Writing Competency.

Quality improvement (QI) is critically important in current medical practice. Although many QI courses teach improvement science and methods, formal education in writing QI manuscripts for academic journal publication is lacking. The authors developed a QI Writing program, consisting of educational sessions with both coach and peer mentors, to improve comfort and productivity in preparing QI manuscripts for publication.

Implementing Outcome-based Care in Pediatric Psychiatry: Early Results and Overcoming Barriers.

Background: Poor utilization of standardized outcome measures for monitoring patient care and progress in mental health services is evident. The objective of this work was to implement computerized diagnostic and history assessments for outpatient mental health visits in the ambulatory psychiatric clinic of a large pediatric health system.

Methods: A computerized assessment system was created for the iPad to administer and score a series of validated diagnostics before new patient and follow-up appointments with a psychiatry provider.

Decreasing Radiograph Errors in Pediatric Sports Medicine Clinic.

Background: Radiographs are frequently ordered for general musculoskeletal complaints in the outpatient setting. However, incorrect laterality, incorrect location, or unnecessary radiographs have been reported as errors in our clinics. This quality improvement (QI) project aimed to reduce incorrect duplicate radiographs in outpatient pediatric sports medicine clinic.

Increasing Patient Portal Activation in a Pediatric Subspecialty Clinic.

Background: Online patient portals are not widely used, despite their advantages for efficient communication, especially for patients with chronic conditions. A hospital-based group practice of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatricians initiated this quality improvement (QI) project with a goal to increase the percentage of patients with an active MyChart (Epic Systems Corporation's patient portal) account and ultimately improve efficiency of communication between families and clinical staff.

Methods: Using QI methodology, we identified staff commitment, workflow issues, and family awareness as gaps and implemented progressive Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles aimed at developing standard processes for activating families on MyChart.

Implementation of an Outcome Measure in Pediatric Behavioral Health: A Process Improvement Initiative.

Introduction: Efforts to monitor outcomes in pediatric behavioral health are becoming a quality, financial, and regulatory imperative. The implementation of a broad-based measure to assess patient functioning at the start of pediatric psychology services, as well as at subsequent visits, has not been demonstrated. This article describes the systematic implementation of a measure of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) to assess functional impairment across an entire clinic population using quality improvement science and methodologies.