Inpatient Psychiatry: Better Care and Safety Through Quality Improvement

• Published in: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Vol. 55; no. 10; p. S349
• Main Authors: Sorter, Michael T., MD, Azeem, Muhammad W., MD
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Elsevier Inc 01.10.2016; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Basic Skills; Care delivery; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child psychiatrists; Conferences; Delivery Systems; Health care; Health care management; High risk; Hospitalization; Improvement Programs; In care; Injuries; Inpatient care; Interdisciplinary aspects; Interdisciplinary team work; Leadership; Leadership Effectiveness; Occupational safety; Patient safety; Patients; Pediatrics; Psychiatrists; Psychiatry; Quality control; Quality management; Quality of care; Reliability; Residential care; Safety; Safety measures; Social isolation; Staff
• ISSN: 0890-8567; 1527-5418
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2016.07.086

Objectives: Inpatient psychiatry is a high risk area for patient harm and staff injury. In many areas of medicine, the development of highly effective healthcare teams has been shown to deliver greatly improved safety and outcomes for patients. Quality improvement principles provide a structure for leadership to develop and sustain these highly effective healthcare teams. Psychiatry has been slow to adopt such principles in the provision of inpatient and residential care. In this program, participants will learn key aspects of quality improvement science and techniques that will aid them in developing their own effective healthcare teams to enhance and deliver improved safety and better outcomes for patients and create a safe environment for staff with higher satisfaction. Methods: Real case examples focusing on patient safety, staff safety, and satisfaction of both employees and families will be used to illustrate the key elements of quality improvement and development of enhanced processes of care delivery. Successful strategies to overcome the system barriers to achieving highly functional clinical systems will be discussed and illustrated. The Workshop will review the role of the physician leader and the management of the many complex processes, such as clinical, administrative, and business, that affect the inpatient and residential care delivery system. This program will demonstrate methods on how to manage adverse safety events, diminish errors in care, enhance reliability, improve staff engagement, and improve safety through the reduction of seclusion and restraint. Results: Participants will have a growing understanding of quality improvement principles and the way they can be used to enhance the multidisciplinary care team on inpatient services. They will develop the skills to be effective leaders in the inpatient setting. They will have basic skills to develop their own quality improvement programs and use these skills to improve patient and staff safety. Conclusions: By use of a structured quality improvement approach to managing the complex system of inpatient care, child psychiatrists can lead efforts to improve the outcomes of patients and staff. Participants in this Workshop will have the skills to develop their own quality improvement initiatives at their own institutions that will improve patient and staff safety.