QI Projects

UTHealth Houston is one of the nation’s most comprehensive academic health science centers and brings together the best in health care across hundreds of disciplines and specialties. Teamwork fuels our excellence in health education, innovation, scientific discovery, and patient care, allowing us to solve the greatest health challenges of our time. Additionally, the Department of Pediatrics leads McGovern Medical School among quality improvement initiatives, with more than 170 QI projects since 2017. A framework at the core of our quality assessment includes the six domains of healthcare quality by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

The Six domains of healthcare quality include:

  • Safety
  • Effectiveness
  • Efficiency
  • Equity
  • Patient-Centered

Each of the six domains serve as a vital role in the overall quality of care. Safety refers to prevention of injury or death. Effectiveness measure how well a treatment or procedure works in achieving its intended purpose. Efficiency determines how well a resource is being used, or how quickly something is performed. Equity ensures that everyone has an equal chance of getting the best possible care. Patient-centeredness considered the needs and preferences of each patient on and individual basis.

Understanding each area and its importance, healthcare providers can improve the quality of the care they provide to their patients. Educating our medical students, residents, fellows, faculty, and staff on these domains, we can place effort to improve areas in all aspects of our organization.

Below are some examples of Quality Improvement initiatives performed here in the Department of Pediatrics in each area of the six domains of healthcare quality.

Safe:

  • Hand washing
  • Reducing infections
    • CLABSI
  • Education for Surveillance/Caregivers with adolescents that need supervision while Inpatient
  • Advancing Pediatric Resident Behavioral Health Education and Aggression Management in an Acute Care Inpatient Pediatrics Setting
  • Masks and distance during COVID
  • Variances

Effective:

  • Research on latest and most advanced care
  • Treatment: This or that is better?
    • Beta-Lactam antibiotic Selection
  • Survey projects:
    • Epilepsy Education
  • Treatment Pathways:
    • Asthma Exacerbation in ER pathway
    • Osteomyelitis pathway
  • Education:
    • Implementation of an educational bedside guideline for pediatric traumatic brain injuries in the pediatric intensive care unit
  • Screening
    • Improving Microalbuminuria Type 2 Diabetes
    • SDOH

Patient-centered:

  • Trust Based Relational Intervention® Principles for Medical Students
  • Optimizing Language Access for those Speaking Languages other than English

Timely:

  • Reduce wait times in waiting rooms

Efficient:

  • Creating order sets in Epic at clinics for physicians
  • Improving Sepsis Huddles
  • Diabetes Transition of Care Program
  • Improved Physician Nursing Communication
  • How many tracheal aspirate cultures should we be obtaining in CMHH’s NICU?

Equitable:

  • Social Determinants of Health Project
    • Clinic
    • Inpatient
  • Understanding barriers ancillary care for children with medical complexity
  • A Holistic Approach to Medical Education Focused on Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)
  • Improving access to healthy food and nutrition education for obesity prevention among at-risk children through Brighter Bites