Decision Support for Quality Improvement
Uploaded by bessem on Oct 24, 2017
AHL 825-Quality Management
Decision Support for Quality Improvement Paper
Paper
Select one of these case studies below and write a critical analysis paper that discusses how you would assist
clinicians to determine the best use of clinical decision support in the selected case. Strong papers will include the
below elements:
1. Define decision support, its importance and why it is difficult to implement in the selected case study.
2. Give examples of the benefits and shortfalls of alerts and clinical reminders in the case study.
3. Use the “5 rights” of Clinical Decision Support for recommendations related to the case study.
Proper citations to online or library sources is expected. Spelling and Grammar are graded. Submissions will be
accepted online through WebCT only. There is no minimum or maximum word count/page length expectation;
rather students should answer the questions fully and succinctly.
Case Study 1
A semi-rural community hospital has bought a commercial inpatient computerized order entry system (CPOE). The
hospital admits patients to its inpatient units from its emergency department (ED) and from ambulatory clinics
and wants to assure and measure safe and timely admission and transition of patients from the ED to the inpatient
unit. The hospital sees many cases of chest pain in the ED, which has been identified as an area in which it can
improve management. There is a standard protocol for working up, diagnosing, and treating patients with chest
pain, and the inpatient physician group would like to assure rapid initiation of the protocol once the diagnosis of
chest pain is made in the ED.
Case Study 2
A patient may come to the ED with clear diagnosis of a major event (heart attack) that requires immediate transfer
to the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU). The cardiac care team has specific protocols for different cardiac
diagnoses that depend on rapid evaluation and diagnosis in the ED, timely communication to the cardiac care team
and coordination of care (diagnostic testing, interventions) and transfer of the patient to the CICU.
Case Study 3
Ambulatory practices in the community want to keep track of patients who are admitted for chest pain (especially
those who are diagnosed with heart disease). They would like to improve ongoing management of heart disease in
their population by being alerted to patient admission to the hospital and hospital management and disposition of
these patients (new medications, management by specialists, etc.). They have a good working relationship with the
hospital and some of the ambulatory practices affiliated with the hospital already have a common electronic health
record that connects to the hospital information systems.
Case...