Quality improvement programs in neurosurgery can improve documentation and decrease mortality, according to an analysis published by Duke investigators in December 2017 in Neurosurgery. The study is one of the first to assess the efficacy of an institutional quality improvement initiative in terms of patient mortality index.
The initial goal of the quality initiative was to improve documentation and more accurately assess patients’ preoperative mortality risk, says the initiative’s lead, Duke neurosurgeon Oren Gottfried, MD. In July 2014, he began collecting outcomes and risk data on all patients who were either admitted to or received consultation at Duke Neurosurgery. A year later, in 2015, the department implemented a multifactorial quality improvement intervention.
Read the entire story by Catherine Lewis in Clinical Practice Today