This edition of the newsletter is the first of our ‘mission-subject-matter’ newsletters. Many thanks to Nicole Johnson for being willing to be the first to gather articles and ideas for this Quality and Safety themed edition!
The Quality and Safety Committee is comprised of several smaller subcommittees or workgroups who work quietly and efficiently behind the scenes for our Society. The following summarizes each subgroup’s current activities.
The Center of Excellence subcommittee is in charge of the Center of Excellence application and review process. The application window for the 2019/2020 cycle has just closed so reviewers will begin scoring applications soon. We will announce the awardee(s) of the Center of Excellence Designation at the SPS annual meeting in May of 2020. Each year this subcommittee reviews the Center of Excellence application and revises it based on feedback from applicants and reviewers and other information, such as new sedation quality metrics. They also revise the reviewing tool based on feedback from reviewers and the changes in the application. The subcommittee is working with national organizations to get the Center of Excellence designation recognized by larger accrediting/awarding bodies – hopefully more on this to come.
The next step for the Center of Excellence subgroup is developing a Center of Excellence description and process for other provider models of pediatric procedural sedation. We are investigating what that would look like for dental practices and emergency departments that provide pediatric sedation. If you are a dentist or an PEM provider who would like to be involved with the description of what the gold standard for quality pediatric sedation looks like in these venues, please contact me.
If you attended the SPS conference in the spring, you probably noticed the amazing infographics on display developed from the data gathered from the survey of PSRC institutions. These infographics will soon be available for viewing on the SPS website. One covers the demographics of our institutions, one is about approaches to safety, one on credentialing, one covers efficiency and timeliness and one looks at patient and family centered experience, effectiveness and equitable care. Take some time to dive into the plethora of detail and data in these attractive displays. Our teams have come a long way!
The SPS website is full of resources. Have you ever wanted to look up the AAP guidelines on sedation and then wondered how the ACEP or ADA document differs? Or what international sedation-related guidelines are available? Or have a question about what is published on credentialing or other policies? Instead of searching for hours for all of the various guidelines in multiple locations, just go to the SPS website under Resources, Quality and Safety and click on the Repository link. Here you will find a multitude of references at the click of a mouse.
Member(s) of our committee update this list approximately every year. However, if you notice that there is a reference or important source missing, email the contact listed on the top of the Repository home page (updaterequest@societyhq.com) and they will look into it for you. Although there may be some references on this site related to regulatory requirements, we have a sub-group tasked with gathering references and putting together recommendations regarding regulatory readiness specifically tailored to sedation.
Physicians, are you frustrated that none of the MOC-4 options offered on the American Board of Pediatrics Website relate to the field of Pediatric Sedation? The MOC subgroup of the Q&S committee is at work to decrease this frustration! Whether it be working with a third party that provides much of the infrastructure or just making it easier to find and implement a project idea by adapting those that others successfully submitted, the subgroup hopes to have concrete progress soon.
One of the prime strategic goals of the Q&S Committee was the development of quality metrics related to sedation. The development of a validated patient/family satisfaction survey is ongoing. In addition, working with the PSRC and Research Committee, we will be going back to our sedation quality roots with the Great Expectations paper to determine measures for evaluating using the PSRC database and asking a small number of volunteer institutions to enter data for those measures. Once successful, we then hope to open data collection up to a larger number of institutions for their own quality use. We can further validate these metrics and add them into the Center of Excellence process as well.
If any SPS member sees a project above that they are passionate about, and would like to contribute to the efforts, please contact me (cdland2@uky.edu) or Joye Stewart (joye@societyhq.com) to volunteer.