Cincinnati Children’s Improves Outcomes in 50% of Children with Chronic Conditions

Over 13,000 children with chronic conditions at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) are experiencing improved outcomes, according to a March study published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. As part of a three-year quality initiative, CCHMC created 18 registries in Epic to manage patients with chronic conditions, such as sickle cell disease and asthma. With a risk calculator in Epic, they stratified patients into different groups to best target those who needed the most care.

Quality improvement teams set a goal for each condition, such as improving disease control or patient-reported quality of life, and 50% of patients across the program met these goals. For example, the team tackling sickle cell disease aimed to raise patients’ fetal hemoglobin to at least 20%, and about 55% of patients in the registry achieved that goal.

One key to the improved outcomes was a pre-visit plan (PVP) note that appeared in Epic for all members of the patient’s care team to review. This note improved care coordination across physicians, nurses, mental health specialists, social workers, and patients’ families and helped ensure that patients received the right care at the right time.

Read the March 2017 study here.