Recruitman Letter

Updating and Expanding the AHRQ QI Toolkit for Hospitals

Background

Many of you may be aware that UHC collaborated with the RAND Corporation on an AHRQ-supported project from 2009 to 2012 to develop the AHRQ QI Toolkit for Hospitals. This work was published in the article “Using a Hospital Quality Improvement Toolkit to Improve Performance on the AHRQ Quality Indicators,” in the April 2013 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety and all of the tools are available in the public domain on the AHRQ website.

Based on the success of the original project, AHRQ has awarded additional support to RAND and UHC to update and expand the current toolkit with the latest evidence-based practices for all of the Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) and some Inpatient Quality Indicators (IQIs). In addition, we are creating a new pediatric–specific toolkit that includes all of the Pediatric Quality Indicators (PDIs). Once the pediatric toolkit is complete, we plan to combine the updated adult toolkit with the new pediatric toolkit for hospitals that serve both adults and children.

We are currently surveying interest from our members to participate in a field test of the 2 new toolkits: 1) the new pediatric toolkit, and 2) the combined adult/pediatric toolkit. We are recruiting about 20 hospitals to implement the new toolkit. Of these 20 hospitals, most should serve children in an inpatient capacity to some degree so that the new pediatric tools can be used. All of these hospitals will participate in an Improvement Collaborative to test the implementation of the toolkit. Participation may benefit your hospital - our data from the past three years show that participants in UHC Improvement Collaboratives achieve greater reduction in patient harm compared to those organizations that do not participate.

Six of the implementation hospitals will also be asked to participate in interviews as part of an evaluation to inform revisions to the toolkit. For the 6 that will participate in the evaluation, we are seeking 2 free-standing children’s hospitals, 2 that have children’s “hospitals within a hospital”, and 2 general hospitals that provide some degree of pediatric inpatient care.

Participating hospitals should have a designated project lead (quality improvement “champion”). Other requirements include: (a) participation in regular meetings by teleconference; (b) commitment of a multi-disciplinary team to implement and test the QI Toolkit; (c) collaboration with other hospitals to share experiences; and (d) support from hospital leadership. This will take approximately 12 months including time for planning and evaluation.

Action Requested:

If you are interested in committing your hospital to participate in this important project, please complete and sign the attached agreement and email or fax (312-775-4580) to Cathy Krsek at krsek@uhc.edu.

Sincerely,

Julie Cerese,

Vice President

Performance Improvement, UHC

Our organization, ________________________________________________________,

commits to participating in the AHRQ Toolkit for Hospitals project.

We are committed to:

1. Participating for the duration of the project (about 12 months, including time for planning and evaluation)

2. Designating a project lead (quality improvement champion)

Name___________________________________

Email___________________________________

3. Participating in regular meetings by teleconference

4. Committing a multi-disciplinary team to implement and test the toolkit

5. Collaborating with other hospitals to share experiences

6. Assuring support from hospital leadership.

Please indicate what degree of inpatient pediatric care, if any, you provide [please check one box]:

Free-standing children’s hospital

Children’s “hospital within a hospital”

General hospital that provides some pediatric inpatient care

No inpatient pediatric care provided

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Signature

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Printed name

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Title