WASHINGTON – Four experts explain what COQIPS, VIP, PEMCRC, and ALIIGN are all about.
These acronyms each concern pediatric quality improvement, and you can learn about them in part 2 of a video roundtable that took place at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Matt D. Garber, director of pediatric hospitalists and chief quality officer at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital, Columbia, S.C., representing the AAP Quality Improvement Innovation Networks (QUIIN), explains how Value in Inpatient Pediatrics (VIP) quality collaboratives involving a number of hospitals take guidelines that impact patient care, such as bronchiolitis, and create quality measures and toolkits, and try to implement what the guidelines are recommending. There also is an outpatient arm involving pediatric practices.
Dr. Michael L. Rinke, a pediatric hospitalist who is medical director of quality at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, New York, and cochair of the implementation committee of the AAP Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (COQIPS), described how COQIPS will serve as a clearinghouse for toolkits so pediatricians “don’t have to reinvent the wheel” when they want to do quality improvement projects. He emphasized that these toolkits are a quality improvement project-in-a-box.
Dr. Anupam B. Kharbanda, director of research for emergency services at Children’s Minnesota, Minneapolis, and chairman, AAP pediatric emergency medicine collaborative research committee of the section on emergency medicine, emphasized these guidelines and toolkits “apply to your patients, to the average pediatrician who wants to get involved.”
Dr. Joel S. Tieder, a pediatric hospitalist and director of the maintenance of certification program at Seattle Children’s Hospital and vice-chair of the AAP COQIPS, added that maintenance of certification is a perfect opportunity to do a quality improvement project, and not just that, to improve quality for your patients. Dr. Tieder is the author of the ALIIGN proposal, which is all about evaluating and implementing guidelines.
*This article was updated 11/3/2015.