The Irish National Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Quality Improvement Collaborative: An Adaptive Learning Collaborative

Authors

Orla Woods
Rachel MacDonell
John Brennan
Lucia Prihodova
Breda Cushen
Richard W Costello
Timothy J McDonnell

Publication Date

1-8-2024

Journal

BMJ Open Quality

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the the most common disease-specific cause of adult emergency hospital admissions in Ireland. Preliminary groundwork indicated that treatment of acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD) in Ireland is not standardised between public hospitals. Applying Institute for Healthcare Improvement Breakthrough Series and Model for Improvement methodologies, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland designed and conducted a novel flexible and adaptive quality improvement (QI) collaborative which, using embedded evaluation, aimed to deliver QI teaching to enable teams to implement bespoke, locally applicable changes to improve and standardise acute COPD care at presentation, admission and discharge stages within their hospitals.

METHODS: Eighteen teams from 19 hospitals across Ireland participated over 13 months. QI teaching was facilitated through inperson learning sessions, site visits, programme manager and coaching support. Teams submitted monthly anonymised patient data (n=10) for 22 measures of AECOPD care for ongoing QI evaluation. A mixed-methods survey was administered at the final learning session to retrospectively evaluate participants' experiences of QI learning and patient care changes.

RESULTS: Participants reported that they learnt QI and improved patient care during the collaborative. Barriers included increased workload and lack of stakeholder buy-in. Statistically significant improvements (mean±SD) were seen for 'documented dyspnoea, eosinopenia, consolidation, acidaemia and atrial Fibrillation (DECAF) assessment' (7.3 (±14.4)% month(M)1 (n=15 sites); 49.6 (±37.7)% M13 (n=16 sites); p

CONCLUSION: This flexible QI collaborative provided adaptive collaborative learning that facilitated participating teams to improve AECOPD patient care based on the unique context of their own hospitals. Findings indicate that involvement in the QI collaborative facilitated teams in achieving their improvements.

Keywords

Adult, Humans, Quality Improvement, Retrospective Studies, Learning, Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive, Hospitals

Comments

Supplementary Materials

Data Availability Statement

PMID: 38191216