Primer Part 1 - Preparing a laboratory quality improvement project.

Quality in laboratory medicine encompasses multiple components related to total quality management, including quality control (QC), quality assurance (QA), quality indicators, and quality improvement (QI). Together, they contribute to minimizing errors (pre-analytical, analytical, or post-analytical) in clinical service delivery and improving process appropriateness and efficiency. In contrast to static quality benchmarks (QC, QA, quality indicators), the QI paradigm is a continuous approach to systemic process improvement for optimizing patient safety, timeliness, effectiveness, and efficiency. Healthcare institutions have placed emphasis on applying the QI framework to identify and improve healthcare delivery. Despite QI's increasing importance, there is a lack of guidance on preparing, executing, and sustaining QI initiatives in the field of laboratory medicine. This has presented a significant barrier for clinical laboratorians to participate in and lead QI initiatives. This three-part primer series will bridge this knowledge gap by providing a guide for clinical laboratories to implement a QI project that issuccessful and sustainable. In the first article, we introduce the steps needed to prepare a QI project with focus on relevant methodology and tools related to problem identification, stakeholder engagement, root cause analysis (e.g., fishbone diagrams, Pareto charts and process mapping), and SMART aim establishment. Throughout, we describe a clinical vignette of a real QI project completed at our institution focused on serum protein electrophoresis (SPEP) utilization. This primer series is the first of its kind in laboratory medicine and will serve as a useful resource for future engagement of clinical laboratory leaders in QI initiatives.

Temporal Clustering of Critical Illness Events on Medical Wards.

Importance: Recognizing and preventing patient deterioration is important for hospital safety. Objective: To investigate whether critical illness events (in-hospital death or intensive care unit [ICU] transfer) are associated with greater risk of subsequent critical illness events for other patients on the same medical ward. Design, Setting, and Participants: Retrospective cohort study in 5 hospitals in Toronto, Canada, including 118 529 hospitalizations. Patients were admitted to general internal medicine wards between April 1, 2010, and October 31, 2017. Data were analyzed between January 1, 2020, and April 10, 2023. Exposures: Critical illness events (in-hospital death or ICU transfer). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was the composite of in-hospital death or ICU transfer. The association between critical illness events on the same ward across 6-hour intervals was studied using discrete-time survival analysis, adjusting for patient and situational factors. The association between critical illness events on different comparable wards in the same hospital was measured as a negative control. Results: The cohort included 118 529 hospitalizations (median age, 72 years [IQR, 56-83 years]; 50.7% male). Death or ICU transfer occurred in 8785 hospitalizations (7.4%). Patients were more likely to experience the primary outcome after exposure to 1 prior event (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.39; 95% CI, 1.30-1.48) and more than 1 prior event (AOR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.33-1.68) in the prior 6-hour interval compared with no exposure. The exposure was associated with increased odds of subsequent ICU transfer (1 event: AOR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.54-1.81; >1 event: AOR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.79-2.36) but not death alone (1 event: AOR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.97-1.19; >1 event: AOR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.71-1.09). There was no significant association between critical illness events on different wards within the same hospital. Conclusions and Relevance: Findings of this cohort study suggest that patients are more likely to be transferred to the ICU in the hours after another patient's critical illness event on the same ward. This phenomenon could have several explanations, including increased recognition of critical illness and preemptive ICU transfers, resource diversion to the first event, or fluctuations in ward or ICU capacity. Patient safety may be improved by better understanding the clustering of ICU transfers on medical wards.