Quality Improvement Curriculum

The Quality Improvement (QI) curriculum provides longitudinal training and hands-on experience with quality improvement methods to improve our health care system. Residents participate in the QI curriculum during two-week blocks during PGY 2 and 3 years of their residency as well as scattered time during 3:1 blocks.

Past and current projects include:

• Bedside Ultrasound: The QI team has developed a curriculum for residents to learn basic bedside ultrasound skills and have obtained 2 portable “pocket” ultrasound units for residents to use for training.
• Diabetic Foot Infections: This project focuses on improving outcomes for hospitalized patients with diabetic foot infections using care algorithms and multidisciplinary care teams.
• CAUTI Prevention: The project focuses on preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infection in the intensive care unit. Two educational training modules have been developed.
• Hypertension: PMG-NE Clinic patients with Stage 2 hypertension were given a free blood pressure cuff to use for home monitoring and received regular outreach from the clinic care team. The project is currently analyzing outcome data on blood pressure improvements.
• Polypharmacy: The project targets patients over age 60 who are on 10 or more medications. Resident and faculty physicians are analyzing their identified patients to reduce or remove unnecessary or potentially dangerous medications.
• Telemetry Utilization: The QI team has collected data on telemetry usage at 2 Providence hospitals and is evaluating how often telemetry is used for non-guideline indications. Interventions will focus on reducing telemetry use for low-value indications, presumably resulting in cost savings.
• Delirium Prevention: A new project focused on reducing delirium amongst older hospitalized patients with fractures through a multi-modal nursing and physician intervention.
• Tobacco Cessation: A multi-disciplinary team of physician, behaviorist and clinic pharmacist worked with PMG-NE smokers interested in quitting. The project is currently examining outcome data on quit success rates.
• Improving management of Hepatitis C: This project is just getting started and will focus on screening eligible patients for Hepatitis C and developing care algorithms for monitoring and treatment of patients identified to have Hepatitis C.
• Contraceptive Education for Residents: Create new curriculum to increase contraceptive knowledge for resident physicians to be able to better provide care for our clinic patients.

In addition, residents benefit from one-on-one teaching sessions with full-time faculty and health care leaders from inside and outside Providence Health & Services. Course faculty bring expertise on medical economics, health insurance, quality improvement, health care administration, health care reform, community care delivery and the care of underserved populations.