WASHINGTON – Experts in pediatric quality improvement convened at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics to discuss important next steps that must occur for quality improvement to advance.
In part 1 of a video roundtable, they described how networks are being formed to spur data sharing and determination of benchmarks in a variety of pediatric conditions, such as urinary tract infections and asthma. Dr. Matt D. Garber, director of pediatric hospitalists and chief quality officer at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital, Columbia, S.C., representing the American Academy of Pediatrics Quality Improvement Innovation Networks (QUIIN), discussed how one such study on bronchiolitis guidelines enlisted the help of emergency physicians and inpatient physicians.
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, questioned whether what third party payers want as benchmarks and what physicians, patients, and parents want in terms of quality of care are the same.
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 Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (COQIPS), said, “With asthma, now we have a world where patient preferences matter, and they are hard to measure across this complicated health system.”
Dr. Michael L. Rinke, a pediatric hospitalist who is medical director of quality at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York and cochair of the implementation committee of the AAP Council on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (COQIPS), concurred.