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
an optional dedicated Integrated block during their residency.
Past and current projects include:
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Bedside Ultrasound: The QI team has developed a curriculum for residents to learn basic bedside
ultrasound skills and have obtained 3 portable “pocket” ultrasound
units for residents to use for training.
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Hypertension: PMG-NE Clinic patients with Stage 2 hypertension were given a free Bluetooth-enabled
blood pressure cuff to use for home monitoring and received regular outreach
from the clinic care team. The project demonstrated substantial improvements
in hypertensive control and was presented at the Plenary Session of the
National Society for General Internal Medicine meeting in Spring 2023.
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Phenobarbital for Alcohol Withdrawal: Phenobarbital is a safe and effective medication to use for treatment
of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. This project works to standardize treatment
of alcohol withdrawal with phenobarbital in the ICU and to train physicians
to use the phenobarbital alcohol withdrawal order set in the ICU.
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Tobacco Cessation: Our clinic is working with the Health Education Department and Xealth
to improve tobacco cessation in our clinic patients. This involves email
and MyChart outreach to patients who smoke encouraging them to quit and
connecting them to resources (online classes, tobacco quit line, their PCP).
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Vaccination Rates: Our clinic is working with American College of Physicians (ACP) Raise the
Rates to improve vaccination rates in our clinic patients. The focus in
2023-24 is on influenza vaccination.
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Diabetic Foot Infections: This project focused on improving outcomes for hospitalized patients
with diabetic foot infections using care algorithms and multidisciplinary
care teams.
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CAUTI Prevention: The project focused on preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infection
in the intensive care unit. Two educational training modules have been
developed.
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Telemetry Utilization: The QI team collected data on telemetry usage at 2 Providence hospitals
and evaluated how often telemetry is used for non-guideline indications.
The project resulted in changes to the EMR with automated reminders of
guideline indications to continue or discontinue telemetry.
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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.
