Your meeting with hospital stakeholders on designing a dashboard to better care for COVID-19 patients who are experiencing homelessness was a resounding success. Everyone was engaged and helped craft a problem statement, KPIs, and OKRs that you then presented to your hospital IT team. Luckily, IT has the bandwidth available to support developing this dashboard—but they need your help through the process. In today’s post, we’ll go over the second phase of designing …
HiQuiPs: Dashboards Demystified Part 1 – Problem Identification
You are working in an inner city emergency department (ED) and you notice that there are 10 patients who are waiting for their COVID-19 test results. You know that these patients are all experiencing homelessness but you have no idea if they were all exposed at one place, what symptoms they’re experiencing, and how best to inform your local public health department. You create a spreadsheet to start keeping track of these details …
Predicting Occult Scaphoid Fractures in the ED Using Clinical Features
Clinical scenario A 27-year old female presents to the emergency department (ED) after a fall onto her hand from amotorized scooter. She has pain on the radial aspect of her left wrist and anatomical snuffbox.However, the X-rays do not indicate an obvious scaphoid fracture. Clinical question: What are the predictive clinical features for occult scaphoid fractures in patients with normal initial radiographs in the ED? Background Scaphoid fractures commonly occur from a fall …
HiQuiPs: Using dashboards to supercharge clinical care and quality improvement
Odds are in your favourite sci-fi movie or TV show, a character spends time looking at a dashboard to determine their next course of action. However, dashboards are not limited to sci-fi! Many organizations across sectors make daily use of dashboards to run smoothly and work towards their goals. St. Michael’s Hospital of Unity Health Toronto has designed, developed, and ultimately deployed dashboards to solve real-world problems. Examples include supporting community partners by …
What is the role of systemic thrombolysis in the management of pulmonary embolism?
A previously well 41-year-old woman on OCP presents to the emergency department with acute-onset tachycardia, dyspnea, and leg swelling. While awaiting imaging, she rapidly deteriorates and BP drops to 86/60 (triage BP 134/78). CT shows bilateral pulmonary emboli. Risk Stratification Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a cardiovascular emergency which can result in significant morbidity and mortality for patients.1 It is classified as high risk (formerly “massive”), intermediate (formerly “submassive”), or low risk. High-risk PE …
HiQuiPs: Engaging Residents in QIPS – Current and Future Perspectives
Welcome to this HiQuiPs post on Quality Improvement in Residency Education where we will review the current status of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (QIPS) education in postgraduate medical education and strategies to effectively engage trainees in QIPS. CanMEDS and QIPS In 2015, the updated CanMEDs framework broadened accreditation standards for residency programs across Canada.1 As part of the CanMEDS roles, competencies in QIPS methodologies have been highlighted in each of the six …