Metrics and Decision Makers

[Michael Wishart]

This is worth reposting here, Definitely food for thought! It is from the US, but we are looking at these kind of metrics here in Australia as well being nationally reported. Are we being driven by quality metrics rather than infection prevention and control?

From:

http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/metrics-decision-makers-and-hospital.html?utm_sourcefeedburner&utm_mediumemail&utm_campaignFeed:+blogspot/vutUL+(Controversies+in+Hospital+Infection+Prevention)

Metrics, Decision Makers and Hospital Epidemiologists

This is a guest post by Silvia Munoz-Price, MD, PhD, Enterprise Epidemiologist and Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

During the past few weeks I have been mulling over two issues related to Quality and Infection Control that have to do with metrics, their use, and the impact that they have in our hospitals. Two separate topics but related to a certain degree.

1. My hospital has a strong Quality Department and a stronger culture of safety. For the most part we have very few serious infections and even fewer MRSA, VRE, and almost no multidrug resistant Gram negative rods. Our compliance with hand hygiene is 73% (as per >5000 observations collected over a couple of months by managers from units that are not their own and concordant readings obtained by the Infection Control Department. I am trying to tell you that 73% is probably close to accurate). From my perspective, if indeed true, this is an acceptable rate. I think we should concentrate on preserving this rate and maybe focus on areas/providers that need more attention. However, my hospital wants this number to be close to 100%. So, here are my questions: should we invest more time, effort, and money to push for higher compliance with hand hygiene? What would be the return on investment of increasing our hand hygiene compliance and how could we measure its impact? What type of infections would we prevent by increasing hand hygiene compliance? Yes, our CLABSIs and CAUTI rates could be better, but would they noticeably improve by pushing hand hygiene above 80%? (Im intentionally not discussing C. difficile infections as these have a different etiology in my hospital). And most importantly what other interventions would we be overlooking by focusing so much on hand hygiene? Who decides where to allocate time, effort and money?

2. Over the past couple of decades I have observed a shift in Infection Control throughout the various places I have worked at from minimal interest/resources given to Infection Control, to a phase where more visibility was given to Infection Control matters –probably due to metrics–to the allocation of more interest/resources, to publicly reported metrics, to institutional notoriety and reimbursements linked to metrics, to a tunneled vision about metrics. On this topic, many years ago I observed a human behavior that since I have observed multiple times: when we started placing fluorescent powder on surfaces and giving feedback to providers on the degree of removal, cleaning rates improved (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21460514). Feedback was then given weekly and in a public manner, with a substantial amount of pressure placed on EVS to improve. The numbers got much better. We eventually figured out that EVS providers bought their own ultraviolet lamps to find the fluorescent markers and spot clean them. What happened? The metric made sense at the beginning, initially it probably achieved its intended outcome (more frequent cleaning) but then a threshold was crossed, after which what mattered was the metric (as a number) and no longer the intended outcome (more frequent cleaning). I think the same is happening to our hospitals. Metrics were beneficial initially (more resources for Infection Control, more visibility, more engagement of staff, lower infections) but I would argue that we are on the other phase of the metrics (unintended consequences). All the pressure we are placing for lower and lower metrics (get to zero CAUTIs!) might be backfiring. We are deploying large teams and resources to decrease certain conditions which is shifting our capability to address issues that might be equally or even more important in our respective hospitals (e.g. post craniotomy SSIs). So, who decides how to allocate our limited resources? I would argue that Quality is now the main decision maker and that these decisions are strongly guided by publicly reported metrics. Is this good or bad for our patients? I am not sure. Is this good for the field of Hospital Epidemiology? I don’t think it is. Hospital Epidemiologists need to re-think their involvement in Quality and become their hospitals Chief Quality Officers. That is the only way I see that we will impart some sense to the decisions of resource allocation. However, the opportunity for our specialty to lead in this field might have already passed.

Cheers

Michael

Michael Wishart
Infection Control Coordinator
Holy Spirit Northside Private Hospital
627 Rode Road, Chermside, Qld 4032
t: (07) 3326 3068 | f: (07) 3326 3523
e: Michael.Wishart@hsn.org.au
w:www.holyspiritnorthside.org.au
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[Anonymous]

Thanks Michael,

Very valid points and begs the question – how best to achieve this balance whilst taking into consideration individual facilities needs and sometimes uniqueness.

Robyn

Robyn Birch
CNC Infection Control
Redland Hospital
Department of Health | Queensland Government
PO Box 585, ClevelandQLD 4163
t. (07) 3488 3518
m. 0412 585 099
Robyn.Birch@health.qld.gov.au | http://www.health.qld.gov.au
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Queensland Health acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, and pays respect to Elders past, present and future.

This is worth reposting here, Definitely food for thought! It is from the US, but we are looking at these kind of metrics here in Australia as well being nationally reported. Are we being driven by quality metrics rather than infection prevention and control?

From:

http://haicontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/metrics-decision-makers-and-hospital.html?utm_sourcefeedburner&utm_mediumemail&utm_campaignFeed:+blogspot/vutUL+(Controversies+in+Hospital+Infection+Prevention)

Metrics, Decision Makers and Hospital Epidemiologists

This is a guest post by Silvia Munoz-Price, MD, PhD, Enterprise Epidemiologist and Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

During the past few weeks I have been mulling over two issues related to Quality and Infection Control that have to do with metrics, their use, and the impact that they have in our hospitals. Two separate topics but related to a certain degree.

1. My hospital has a strong Quality Department and a stronger culture of safety. For the most part we have very few serious infections and even fewer MRSA, VRE, and almost no multidrug resistant Gram negative rods. Our compliance with hand hygiene is 73% (as per >5000 observations collected over a couple of months by managers from units that are not their own and concordant readings obtained by the Infection Control Department. I am trying to tell you that 73% is probably close to accurate). From my perspective, if indeed true, this is an acceptable rate. I think we should concentrate on preserving this rate and maybe focus on areas/providers that need more attention. However, my hospital wants this number to be close to 100%. So, here are my questions: should we invest more time, effort, and money to push for higher compliance with hand hygiene? What would be the return on investment of increasing our hand hygiene compliance and how could we measure its impact? What type of infections would we prevent by increasing hand hygiene compliance? Yes, our CLABSIs and CAUTI rates could be better, but would they noticeably improve by pushing hand hygiene above 80%? (I’m intentionally not discussing C. difficile infections as these have a different etiology in my hospital). And most importantly what other interventions would we be overlooking by focusing so much on hand hygiene? Who decides where to allocate time, effort and money?

2. Over the past couple of decades I have observed a shift in Infection Control throughout the various places I have worked at from minimal interest/resources given to Infection Control, to a phase where more visibility was given to Infection Control matters –probably due to metrics–to the allocation of more interest/resources, to publicly reported metrics, to institutional notoriety and reimbursements linked to metrics, to a tunneled vision about metrics. On this topic, many years ago I observed a human behavior that since I have observed multiple times: when we started placing fluorescent powder on surfaces and giving feedback to providers on the degree of removal, cleaning rates improved (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21460514). Feedback was then given weekly and in a public manner, with a substantial amount of pressure placed on EVS to improve. The numbers got much better. We eventually figured out that EVS providers bought their own ultraviolet lamps to find the fluorescent markers and spot clean them. What happened? The metric made sense at the beginning, initially it probably achieved its intended outcome (more frequent cleaning) but then a threshold was crossed, after which what mattered was the metric (as a number) and no longer the intended outcome (more frequent cleaning). I think the same is happening to our hospitals. Metrics were beneficial initially (more resources for Infection Control, more visibility, more engagement of staff, lower infections) but I would argue that we are on the other phase of the metrics (unintended consequences). All the pressure we are placing for lower and lower metrics (get to zero CAUTIs!) might be backfiring. We are deploying large teams and resources to decrease certain conditions which is shifting our capability to address issues that might be equally or even more important in our respective hospitals (e.g. post craniotomy SSIs). So, who decides how to allocate our limited resources? I would argue that Quality is now the main decision maker and that these decisions are strongly guided by publicly reported metrics. Is this good or bad for our patients? I am not sure. Is this good for the field of Hospital Epidemiology? I don’t think it is. Hospital Epidemiologists need to re-think their involvement in Quality and become their hospitals’ Chief Quality Officers. That is the only way I see that we will impart some sense to the decisions of resource allocation. However, the opportunity for our specialty to lead in this field might have already passed.

Cheers

Michael

Michael Wishart
Infection Control Coordinator
Holy Spirit Northside Private Hospital
627 Rode Road, Chermside, Qld 4032
t: (07) 3326 3068 | f: (07) 3326 3523
e: Michael.Wishart@hsn.org.au
w:www.holyspiritnorthside.org.au
Please consider the environment before printing this email

______________________________________________________________________
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