The Quality Committee, formally established in March 2014, is tasked with managing MCSQI’s quality improvement agenda. Membership is comprised of clinicians at all ten MCSQI hospitals, including: surgeons, data managers, intensivists, pulmonologists, nurse practitioners and members of the Cardiovascular team.
After a survey of quality improvement topics, members chose blood conservation and timely extubation as MCSQI’s inaugural initiatives. The Quality Committee examined clinical data from the STS registry correlating hospitals’ results against qualitative information from transfusion to extubation protocols through monthly conference calls. A subcommittee formed to analyze top performers’ guidelines and craft a set of MCSQI best practice recommendations with the goal of increasing the proportion of cases extubated in less than six hours in Q4 of 2015. The MCSQI average across all ten centers has improved since implementation of this best practice protocol.
In the blood conservation subcommittee, analysis of transfusion rates by hospital, procedure type and pre-operative hematocrit levels yielded significant questions about transfusion practices across MCSQI centers. A study coordinated by the Research & Writing Committee yielded statistically significant differences between hospitals after adjusting for risk. Going forward, members will continue to analyze sites’ transfusion practices and work towards generating a comprehensive list of best practice guidelines with the hopes of reducing transfusion rates statewide.
Quality Task Force:
MCSQI Statewide Best Practice Protocols (list the protocols and provide links to the documents)