quality

The Center for Healthcare Improvement is dedicated to conducting research studies that will provide insight into areas of health care in need of quality improvement.

One recent study used pneumonia quality measures to compare the performance of hospitalists and academic teaching teams.  Five widely accepted standards of pneumonia care were selected: pneumococcal vaccine, influenza vaccine, smoking cessation counseling, change of antibiotic with blood culture if indicated, and adherence to Infectious Disease Society of America discharge criteria for pneumonia.

Our results showed that when overall guideline adherence was assessed, there was little difference between the two physician types.  However, when adherence to individual guidelines was examined, academic physicians adhered to the vaccination guidelines at a higher rate compared to hospitalist physicians,  Yet despite their higher rate of adherence, the overall vaccination rate was low among both physician types.  This suggests that adherence to quality measures may not be as highly associated with the type of physician administering care, but rather more associated with the culture and procedures of the medical facilities.

Future plans include examining quality measures across multiple hospitals to explore disparities in quality of patient care.

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Department of Medicine | Medical College of Georgia
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Carol Connelly