Clinical trial NCT00754377: Developing a Practice-Based Learning and Improvement Quality Improvement (QI) Systems Impact Assessment Questionnaire
Official title: Developing a PBLI QI Systems Impact Assessment Questionnaire
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Quality Improvement
Keywords: Education
Program Evaluation
Quality of Health Care
Medical Residents
Lead sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development
Sponsor class: FED
First posted: 2008-09-18
Enrollment: 92
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 25
Maximum age (years): 75
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: RETROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Internal Medicine residents

Brief summary: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) acknowledged the changing needs of physicians in training when it endorsed practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI) -- a competency that is typically omitted from medical curriculum. The goal is to have residents competent to investigate and evaluate their own patient care practices, integrate scientific evidence and be able to improve their practices. Available assessment tools do not adequately address all of the components of PBLI and few assessment tools attempt to capture the residents' ability to develop and implement clinically-based Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) projects that involve the practice setting. Curriculums without such foci miss the importance of system perspectives and opportunities for interprofessional team development. Our aim is to evaluate preliminary data on the curriculum we developed to address the gaps, to develop an assessment tool, and to provide methods for assessing the sustainability of system projects.

The key component of the curriculum is the integration of system quality improvement projects. PBLI curriculum was offered on alternate rotations. Preliminary data is available from 6 PBLI QI Systems Curriculum blocks (n=50) and 5 comparison blocks (n=42). Data includes closed- and open-ended questions designed to assess resident PBLI application skills, the notes and presentation slides for the residents' presentation.

Detailed description: Physicians in training operate in complex healthcare delivery systems but many have not been equipped with the knowledge or skills to analyze clinical environments and continually improve patient care.\[1\] Instead, their training emphasizes the clinical management of individual patients. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) acknowledged the changing needs of physicians in training when it endorsed one of two novel core competencies that are typically omitted from formal medical curriculum: practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI).\[2,3\] The ACGME's PBLI competency involves six points. The overall objective is to have residents competent to investigate and evaluate their own patient care practices, evaluate and integrate scientific evidence into their clinics and be able to improve their practices. However, the ACGME was not prescriptive about how to successfully implement and evaluate PBLI, and an established curriculum and validated assessment tool did not exist.\[4\] Efforts to date to develop an assessment tool provide a foundation, but none adequately addresses all of the components of PBLI as described by the ACGME. \[3, 5-10\] In particular, few assessment tools attempt to capture the residents' ability to develop and implement clinically-based CQI projects that involve the practice setting and assess impact on the practice setting and/or organization. Curriculums without such foci miss the importance of system perspectives, opportunities for interprofessional team development, and meaningful impacts on patient care at a broader organizational level.

After several iterations, a PBLI QI curriculum that addressed the gaps identified in many other curriculums was instituted. \[11\] The key component was the integration of system quality improvement projects that could evolve over several resident outpatient rotation blocks. Data from 11 blocks of the new curriculum is available for analysis. Data includes closed- and open-ended questions designed to assess resident PBLI application skills and the notes and presentation slides for the residents' presentation at the internal medicine's morbidity and mortality conference (IM MMC) at the end of each block. Funding would make it possible to more quickly evaluate the existing preliminary data. Our overall aim is to evaluate the preliminary data on the new curriculum and develop an assessment tool that addresses the six ACGME points and provides methods for assessing the sustainability of system projects. The next step will be to apply for a grant to more fully evaluate the curriculum and assessment tool.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* None, data being used has already been collected from a previous study which the inclusion criteria included all Internal Medicine and Medicine-Pediatrics residents completing a 4 week ambulatory block from 2005-2006 were required to participate in the PBLI curriculum to satisfy an ACGME's core competency.

Exclusion Criteria:

* None, the residents from 2004 that did not complete a 4 week ambulatory block and residents participating in ambulatory block 7 and 13 were excluded from the study previously Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved and exempted study. Blocks 7 and 13 are not structured to permit teaching.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Beliefs About Ability to Implement a CQI Project
timeFrame: 1 month
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in Knowledge Scores About Quality Improvement
timeFrame: 1 Month
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Cleveland
country: United States
facility: Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH
state: Ohio
Study officials:
affiliation: Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH
name: David C Aron, MD MS
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Stulberg JJ, Delaney CP, Neuhauser DV, Aron DC, Fu P, Koroukian SM. Adherence to surgical care improvement project measures and the association with postoperative infections. JAMA. 2010 Jun 23;303(24):2479-85. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.841.
citation: Lawrence RH, Tomolo AM. Development and preliminary evaluation of a practice-based learning and improvement tool for assessing resident competence and guiding curriculum development. J Grad Med Educ. 2011 Mar;3(1):41-8. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-10-00102.1.
citation: Tomolo AM, Lawrence RH, Watts B, Augustine S, Aron DC, Singh MK. Pilot study evaluating a practice-based learning and improvement curriculum focusing on the development of system-level quality improvement skills. J Grad Med Educ. 2011 Mar;3(1):49-58. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-10-00104.1.