PERFormance Enhancement of the Canadian Nutrition Guidelines by a Tailored Implementation Strategy: The PERFECTIS Study

Canadian Critical Care Nutrition Guidelines assist health practitioners in identifying best practices for feeding critically ill patients. However, guidelines have resulted in little change in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) practices, possibly because barriers to change differ between ICUs. Change may be facilitated if strategies specifically address identified barriers. The investigators hypothesize that barriers are inversely related to nutrition performance. Tailoring change strategies to overcome barriers to change will reduce the presence of these barriers and lead to improvements in nutrition practice.

A before-after study will be conducted in 7 Canadian and US ICUs. Each participating ICU will implement a tailored guideline implementation intervention aimed at narrowing the guideline-practice gap. The tailored implementation will consist of 4 phases:

1. Audit of Nutrition Practices: The nutrition practice audit will be conducted as part of the data collection for our ongoing international nutrition quality improvement project. This involves collecting data on personal characteristics and nutrition therapy in a consecutive cohort of 20 mechanically-ventilated critically ill adult patients. Performance at each ICU will be assessed by a benchmarked report comparing the nutrition practices to individual recommendations of the Canadian Critical Care Nutrition CPGs, thus enabling identification of the ICUs strengths and weaknesses, and highlighting areas to target for improvement.
2. Barriers Questionnaire: The barriers and enablers questionnaire will be completed by all physicians, all ICU leadership, the dietitian(s), and a random sample of 30 full- and part-time nurses. This questionnaire asks questions about barriers associated with guideline implementation, such as the characteristics of the guidelines, the care provider, the patient, and the context.
3. Tailored Action Plan: Results of the audit of nutrition practices and barriers questionnaire will be evaluated by the investigators and representatives from the Canadian Critical Care Nutrition CPGs Committee. Committee members include research personnel, intensivists, ICU nurse educators, dietitians, and experts in knowledge translation and health services research. They will be responsible for reviewing the benchmarked reports for each participating ICU, identifying the gaps between the key guideline recommendations and what is actually happening in practice, and reviewing the results of the barriers questionnaire to identify the barriers associated with adhering to these specific recommendations at each site. In collaboration with the local opinion leaders, a tailored 12 month action plan will be developed for each individual ICU.

   The specific behavioral change strategies to be implemented as part of the tailored action plan will likely include powerpoint presentations and handouts, packages of key journal articles, reminders (e.g. posters, checklists), system tools (e.g. pre-printed orders, bedside algorithms), interactive web-based tutorials, guidelines on establishing local implementation teams and creating a culture of team work. Prior to the implementation of these behavioral change strategies in the context of the before-after study, focus groups will be conducted to elicit feedback, and revisions made accordingly.
4. Audit of Nutrition Practices: The audit of nutrition practices will be repeated following the 12 month implementation period in order to evaluate changes in nutrition practices.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* ICUs must be affiliated with a registered dietitian.
* ICUs must have a minimum of 8 beds.
* ICUs must be located in Canada, Australia, or US.
* ICUs have previously participated in the International Nutrition Survey.

Exclusion Criteria:

* ICUs with less than 8 beds.
* ICUs with high nutrition performance, as demonstrated previously in the International Nutrition Survey (i.e. average nutritional adequacy \>60% and/or above 50th percentile when ranked against all participating ICUs according to nutrition practice performance score)