Quality Improvement & Patient Safety Section Resources

Safety & Quality Directors Toolbox

This section will offers select content topics and links to tested tools and techniques that may assist ED managers and quality/safety officers with their administrative duties as they relate to quality and safety.

ED Toolkit Databases

• Urgent Matters Toolkit
  The Urgent Matters Toolkit is a collection of strategies and tools designed to target specific issues facing hospital emergency departments.
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Toolkit
  The AHRQ offers practical, research-based tools and other resources to help a variety of health care organizations, providers, and others make care safer in all health care settings.
• Acute Post Resuscitation Debriefing (APRD) Toolkit - PDF
  The APRD toolkit was developed to help physicians and departments learn from each resuscitation event and provide support to the involved staff to identify latent safety threats to  improve care of subsequent patients, and improve multidisciplinary communication and resilience.
  • Sample APRD Form - PDF

Education & Training

Getting Started with Quality

• Quality Terms and Acronyms
  Stepping into the Quality Improvement world is like learning a new language. It is filled with acronyms and terms. Here is a quick guide that breaks down some commonly found acronyms associated with quality improvement and patient safety.
• Emergency Medicine Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Curriculum - PDF
  The 2010 CORD Supplement, Emergency Medicine Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Curriculum; provides historical overview of key organizations, reports and individuals central to the quality movement in health care.

IHI Courses and Certificates

• Become a CPPS: Certified Professional in Patient Safety
  Looking to advance your knowledge and career in patient safety? Take the Institute for Healthcare Improvement course and become a Certified Professional in Patient Safety. 

QIPS Awards

Resident & Fellows Awards

The QIPS Section has established two annual awards to recognize the many efforts towards promoting quality improvement and patient safety.

• QIPS Quality & Safety Award for post-training EM physicians with outstanding service in advancing quality and/or patient safety.
• QIPS Resident Quality Award for resident EM physicians or fellows who demonstrate excellence in, and a passion for quality improvement.

Quality & Safety Service Award Recipients

• 2020 - Dr. Shobhit Jain, MD, FACEP

Past Resident Award Recipients

• 2020 - Dr. Victoria Terentiev, NYU Langone Health
  Dr. Terentiev and her resident team piloted a novel program in which medical students served as virtual discharge counselors for COVID-19 patients via teleconference to provide in-depth, dedicated counseling regarding a COVID-19 diagnosis. 
• 2019 - Dr. Carolyn Lanam, George Washington University
  Dr. Lanam led an effort to analyze the efficacy of a quality video review-based educational intervention in minimizing pulse check times and maximizing compression ratios for all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
• 2018 - Dr. Ross Littauer, Yale University
  Dr. Littauer's project focuses on reengineering inter-hospital transfers for subspecialty care for patients with nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage that standardized clinical care goals and enhanced inter-disciplinary communication.
• 2017 - Dr. Molly Tolins, University of Washington
  Dr. Tolins launched a project that assessed the feasibility of and satisfaction with a smartphone application for wound-care follow-up in addition to standard of care in two urban Emergency Department populations.

COVID-19 Resources

There is so much out there on COVID-19 both reputable and not. We have put together some high yield links below.

• ACEP COVID-19 Field Guide
  ACEP COVID-19 Field Guide provides a table of contents with information on Home Safety, Work Safety including ACEP statements on PPE, EMS, Triage, Patient Presentation, Assessment, Diagnosis, Risk Stratification, Treatment, Special Populations, Business, Regulations & Liability, Personal Well-Being and Resilience, and Impact on Education, Licensure and Credentialing
• EMCrit Resource
  EMCrit resource prepared by Josh Farcas prepared this COVID-19 Internet Book on Critical Care (IBCC) overview for EMCrit that covers Basic Biology, Infection Control, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prognosis, Disposition and Pitfalls
• Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines - PDF
  Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines on the Critically Ill Adults with COVID-19 created by the Surviving Sepsis Campaign COVID-19 panel which included 36 experts from 12 countries and in this document issued 54 statements, 4 of which are best practice statements and 9 are strong recommendations and covered topics of infection control, laboratory diagnosis and specimens, hemodynamic support, ventilator support and COVID-19 therapy.
• CDC Coronavirus
  Overview of COVID with information you can give patients, family members or even coworkers. This particular link has good information for those in the world of administration about PPE guidance and preserving supplies.
• ACEP EngagED COVID Communication Hub
  EngagED communication hub for COVID-19, communication page, can select daily digests.
• COVID-19 Airway Mgmt
  Free airway resources including links to consensus statements, podcasts and other airway management guidelines related to COVID-19 as part of the Difficult Airway Course website.
• NIH Treatment Guidelines
  NIH treatment guidelines for clinical care of COVID-19 patients, panel includes ACEP, CDC, IDSA, NIH, FDA, American College of Chest Physicians, American Thoracic Society, Society Critical Care Medicine, Dept VA, Dept of Defense and others.
• COVID-19 Hopkins Map
  Worldwide map of confirmed coronavirus cases, deaths, patients tested and recovered.
• IHME Map
  Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) COVID-19 projections per state of hospital, ICU bed and ventilator needs.
• IHI COVID-19 Resource Page
  Institute for Healthcare Improvement landing page for COVID-19 related quality improvement resources.
• Headspace
  Meditation, stress relief, mindfulness for healthcare professionals. Helps us take care of ourselves while caring for others during this stressful time. Free access to Headspace plus with NPI for healthcare professionals