Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jul 2009
Multicenter Study Clinical TrialImproving patient satisfaction with pain management using Six Sigma tools.
Patient satisfaction as a direct and public measure of quality of care is changing the way hospitals address quality improvement. The feasibility of using the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology to improve patient satisfaction as it relates to pain management was evaluated. ⋯ The Six Sigma DMAIC methodology can be used successfully to improve patient satisfaction. The project led to measurable improvements in patient satisfaction with pain management, which have endured past the duration of the Six Sigma project. The Control phase of DMAIC allows the improvements to be incorporated into daily operations.
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Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf · Jul 2009
Clinical validation of the AHRQ postoperative venous thromboembolism patient safety indicator.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety indicators (PSIs) screen for potentially preventable complications in hospitalized patients using hospital administrative data. The PSI for postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) relies on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes for deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE) in secondary diagnoses fields. In a clinical validation study of the PSI for postoperative VTE, natural language processing (NLP), supplemented by pharmacy and billing data, was used to identify VTE events missed by medical records coders. ⋯ The VTE PSI performed well as a screening tool but generated a significant number of false-positive cases, a problem that could be substantially reduced with improved coding methods.