Mission
The Patient Safety & Quality Academic Collaborative is a university-based, center-like, multidisciplinary program aimed at improving clinical practice (quality, safety, value) and health policy within the Military Health System (MHS). We fulfill our mission through alignment of our research, education, and service focus with MHS priorities. We advise critical MHS programs including the DoD Patient Safety Program, Quality Management, Perinatal Care, and the Patient-Centered Medical Home.
Research Core Values
We embrace a set of five core values that guide our research mission and shape our approach to supporting the MHS. Specifically, we pursue:
- Novel original research;
- Research that proactively enhances the quality and safety of care delivered to MHS beneficiaries;
- A “bottom-up” approach to research by designing useful tools and interventions aligned with clinical workflow and opportunity;
- Research that will ultimately have a direct positive impact on clinical practice and may advise policy; and
- Research that can be sustained through re-designed systems and technology such as the electronic health record.
Quality of outpatient clinical notes: a stakeholder definition derived through qualitative research.
Background: There are no empirically-grounded criteria or tools to define or benchmark the quality of outpatient clinical documentation. Outpatient clinical notes document care, communicate treatment plans and support patient safety, medical education, medico-legal investigations and reimbursement. Accurately describing and assessing quality of clinical documentation is a necessary improvement in an increasingly team-based healthcare delivery system. In this paper we describe the quality of outpatient clinical notes from the perspective of multiple stakeholders.
Visit the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health website to access the full text of this article
QNOTE: an instrument for measuring the quality of EHR clinical notes.
Background:The outpatient clinical note documents the clinician's information collection, problem assessment, and patient management, yet there is currently no validated instrument to measure the quality of the electronic clinical note. This study evaluated the validity of the QNOTE instrument, which assesses 12 elements in the clinical note, for measuring the quality of clinical notes. It also compared its performance with a global instrument that assesses the clinical note as a whole.
Visit the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) website to access the full text of this article.
The military health system's personal health record pilot with Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health.
Objective:To design, build, implement, and evaluate a personal health record (PHR), tethered to the Military Health System, that leverages Microsoft® HealthVault and Google® Health infrastructure based on user preference.
Visit the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health website to access the full text of this article
Radiation exposure and cost influence physician medical image decision making: a randomized controlled trial.
Background: It is estimated that 20%-40% of advanced medical imaging in the United States is unnecessary, resulting in patient overexposure to radiation and increasing the cost of care. Previous imaging utilization studies have focused on clinical appropriateness. An important contributor to excessive use of advanced imaging may be a physician "knowledge gap" regarding the safety and cost of the tests.
Visit the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health website to access the abstract of this article
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Family nurse practitioner student perception of journal abstract usefulness in clinical decision making: a randomized controlled trial.
Purpose:To assess family nurse practitioner (FNP) student perception of research abstract usefulness in clinical decision making.
Visit the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health website to access the abstract of this article
Access to the full text of this article not available without subscription.