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Fifty percent of quality improvement studies fail to change medical practices

Date:
June 25, 2014
Source:
Women's College Hospital
Summary:
Over the last two decades, nearly half of all initiatives that review and provide feedback to clinicians on healthcare practices show little to no impact on quality of care, according to a new study. When efforts to improve quality of care do not build on lessons learned from previous research, opportunities are wasted to improve outcomes for patients, the researchers said.
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Over the last two decades, nearly half of all initiatives that review and provide feedback to clinicians on healthcare practices show little to no impact on quality of care, according to a new study by Women's College Hospital's Dr. Noah Ivers.

The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found only 28 per cent of all studies showed an improvement of at least 10 per cent in quality of care over a 25-year period.

"Research shows there is a gap between recommended practices and the care patients actually receive," said Dr. Noah Ivers, a family physician at Women's College Hospital and lead author of the study. "While we have a number of studies showing that providing feedback to clinicians can act as a foundation for improving quality of care if done properly, we found, in most cases, quality improvement efforts are haphazardly implemented, reinventing the wheel rather than learning from what we already know."

In the study, researchers examined 62 studies in the scientific literature and found feedback on healthcare practices was most effective when:

  • it is delivered by a respected colleague
  • it is repeated multiple times
  • it includes specific goals and action plans, and
  • it focuses on a problem where there was a larger scope for improvement.

When efforts to improve quality of care do not build on lessons learned from previous research, opportunities are wasted to improve outcomes for patients, the researchers said. Just as best evidence should be used to decide which treatment is the right choice for a certain problem, a scientific approach should be taken when figuring out ways to ensure that patients receive the right treatment every time, they add.

"New scientific studies that have tried to get clinicians to more consistently provide the right care for the right patients by providing them with feedback reports of their past performance have contributed little new knowledge on how to best do this so that it results in better outcomes for patients," Dr. Ivers noted. "While we know from previous research that providing clinicians with a specific action plan for improvement is essential for providing better care for patients, feedback initiatives rarely include plans aimed at changing the behavior of healthcare professionals."


Story Source:

Materials provided by Women's College Hospital. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Noah M. Ivers, Jeremy M. Grimshaw, Gro Jamtvedt, Signe Flottorp, Mary Ann O’Brien, Simon D. French, Jane Young, Jan Odgaard-Jensen. Growing Literature, Stagnant Science? Systematic Review, Meta-Regression and Cumulative Analysis of Audit and Feedback Interventions in Health Care. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2014; DOI: 10.1007/s11606-014-2913-y

Cite This Page:

Women's College Hospital. "Fifty percent of quality improvement studies fail to change medical practices." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 June 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140625132451.htm>.
Women's College Hospital. (2014, June 25). Fifty percent of quality improvement studies fail to change medical practices. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 24, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140625132451.htm
Women's College Hospital. "Fifty percent of quality improvement studies fail to change medical practices." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140625132451.htm (accessed April 24, 2024).

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