AHRQ has just put out a new toolkit Improving
Your Office Testing Process, aimed
at helping offices track and follow up on tests ordered during office visits.
Failure to follow up on test results is one of our most frequent topics and one
of the most frequent causes for malpractice claims in outpatient medicine.
The toolkit provides step-by-step
instructions on how to evaluate your office processes for tests and use
rapid-cycle quality improvement techniques to make them safer and more
reliable. It provides tools for assessing your testing practices and for
planning your improvement project. For each step you map out it asks practical
questions like who usually performs this step and who does it if that person is
absent. It explains how to use a scoring tool to identify those areas most in
need of improvement.
In addition, there is a patient handout and tools for assessing office readiness and patient engagement, and tools for chart audits and electronic record evaluations.
Gurdev Singh, BScEngg, MScEng PhD,
Co-Director of the University of Buffalo Patient Safety Research Center
and a coauthor of the AHRQ Toolkit notes it is a proactive tool that empowers
stakeholders at the point of care. It helps create teams that inculcate mutual
respect, trust, collaboration and cooperation that leads to prioritization of
hazards in the system and design of feasible interventions to reduce harm to
all. As each setting is unique the tool is adaptable to fit its needs. The most
important feature is that it promotes bottom-up approach designed to educate,
engage and empower providers and patients with a mission to create high
reliability organization.
We think most offices and outpatient clinics will find this toolkit easy to use and very valuable in improving one of the most important facets of ambulatory medicine.
See also our other columns on communicating
significant results:
Some of our other columns on errors related to laboratory studies:
References:
AHRQ Toolkit. Improving Your Office Testing Process. A Toolkit for Rapid-Cycle Patient Safety and Quality Improvement. AHRQ 2013
patient handout
office readiness survey
patient engagement survey
chart audit tool
electronic record evaluation tool
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