Ashley Moellinger (left) leads QI projects for the Children’s of Alabama cardiothoracic team.
Two years after launching a quality improvement (QI) project to reduce re-interventions for one of the most complex heart surgeries performed in newborns, the cardiothoracic team at Children’s of Alabama is ready to call it a success.
The project, which is part of the National Pediatric Cardiac Quality Improvement Collaborative, was designed to understand why re-interventions occurred after the Norwood procedure, which involves constructing a new, larger aorta for babies born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Patients who don’t require an intervention during the hospitalization after their initial surgery have a mortality rate of about 6% while those who require another surgery or catheterization procedure have a 26% mortality rate.
Children’s slashed its Norwood re-intervention rate and lengths of stay by:
- Improving communication among team members
- Identifying and targeting metrics
- Focusing not on “finger-pointing,” but on how to improve the process
Overall, the unit has seen a 30% reduction in re-intervention in the first phase of the surgery and an 18% drop in the average length of stay, as well as significant improvements in other quality markers, including days to extubation and the use of certain medications like opioids and vasopressors. In addition, interventions for post-operative bleeding fell from 18.5% to 4.2%.
“The two main functional components of what we’re doing are situational awareness and communication,” cardiovascular intensivist Hayden Zaccagni, M.D., said. Together, they allow for more scripted and pinpointed conversations about potential complications, he said. “The communication factor is the most important thing—making sure that all the different disciplines that care for these children have the same kind of knowledge umbrella and communicate about it.”
Also important is having clear expectations about the post-operative period. A high-level map at the bedside clearly shows those metrics on a day-by-day basis for cardiovascular, neurological, respiratory and feeding specialists.
The third piece, according to Ashley Moellinger, RN, CRNP, who co-leads QI initiatives in the department, is holding small group-focused meetings to dissect re-interventions. “We get together those involved and say, ‘How can we prevent this from happening again?’” she said.
As with any QI project, data rules. For instance, one of the most common complications the team saw was post-surgical bleeding, so they developed guidelines to quantify the amount of bleeding in the OR not just in volume, or millimeters, but by measuring the blood coagulopathy, or impaired clotting. That led to the discovery that the lab instrument used for the measurement was outdated. And that, in turn, provided hospital administrators with reason to update the machine because they could see the potential impact on patient outcomes.
While the project is a success based on the numbers, it’s also a success in a less tangible way, Zaccagni said. “The morale of the unit, something we haven’t been able to objectively measure, is also improved.” He thinks it’s due to having a better understanding of where patients have come from medically and where they are now. “There’s this huge sense of collaboration.”
The team hopes to apply the lessons learned and new systems to other cardiothoracic surgeries.
No Comments