Strategies to translate research into decisive action to improve patient safety in hospitals were discussed at the latest instalment of Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar’s Grand Rounds series.
Visiting expert Dr Peter Kaboli, chief of medicine, Iowa City VA Hospital, said that it was crucial for efforts to improve patient care to be grounded in very thorough research, and for the results of improvement strategies to be
carefully monitored and analysed.
He said, “The key for making real improvements to the quality of care is to eliminate disconnect between decisive action and rigorous research. Quality improvement measures need to be based on rigorous research that are translated into clear recommendations and strategies, which are then implemented and followed up with monitoring and evaluation. This continuum, which is based on a very close working relationship between researchers and clinicians is therefore very important.”
Dr Kaboli, who was speaking at WCM-Q to an audience of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, medical educators, students and other healthcare providers, described a number of cases where quality improvement research had been used effectively.
These included studies to determine the optimal length of stay in hospital for patients, to analyse the effectiveness of remote telemedicine consultations for HIV patients, and to assess several different protocols for co-ordinating multidisciplinary patient care.
“Multidisciplinary care is a very good target for research-based quality improvement because it often draws together large and diverse teams that comprise of doctors, nurses, other health professionals, social workers and others, each of whom have very different schedules and workloads. Using quality improvement research we have been able to test several different systems to see what works best for co-ordinating care,” Dr Kaboli added.
Dr Peter Kaboli speaking at the event.
