Streamlining medical image sharing for continuity of care.

Sharing patient medical history can be inconvenient and unreliable. Massive strides have been made to address the wasteful aspects of healthcare today, but hospitals and healthcare providers are still searching for ways to improve the efficiency of medical image sharing. To ensure that a patient's historical medical images can be promptly accessed by all caregivers, a solution architecture is needed that anticipates and supports the need for images to be available along with the rest of the patient's required medical history. Healthcare facilities can quickly and affordably use existing technologies, combined with a unified approach for sharing images to greatly improve transitions of care for their patients. Images would no longer need to be burned on to CDs and transported.

A nationwide VA palliative care quality measure: the family assessment of treatment at the end of life.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the FATE (Family Assessment of Treatment at End of Life) Survey for use as a nationwide quality measure in the VA health care system. DESIGN: Nationwide telephone survey. SETTING: Five VA medical centers. PARTICIPANTS: Eligible patients received inpatient or outpatient care from a participating VA facility in the last month of life. One respondent/patient was selected using predefined eligibility criteria and invited to participate. MEASUREMENTS: The FATE survey consists of 32 items in 9 domains: Well-being and dignity (4 items), Information and communication (5 items), Respect for treatment preferences (2 items), Emotional and spiritual support (3 items), Management of symptoms (4 items), Choice of inpatient facility (1 item), Care around the time of death (6 items), Access to VA services (4 items), and Access to VA benefits after the patient's death (3 items). RESULTS: Interviews were completed with 309 respondents. The FATE showed excellent psychometric characteristics, with good homogeneity (e.g., Cronbach (alpha = 0.91) and no evidence of significant ceiling effects. The FATE also demonstrated good discriminant validity. For instance, FATE scores varied across facilities (range 44-72; Kruskal Wallis test p < 0.001). Patients who were seen by a palliative care service had better scores (mean 66 versus 52; rank sum test p < 0.001), as did patients who were referred to hospice (67 versus 49; rank sum test p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The FATE survey offers an important source of quality data that can be used to improve the end-of-life care of all veterans, regardless of the type of care they receive or their site of death.

Do palliative consultations improve patient outcomes?

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether inpatient palliative consultation services improve outcomes of care. DESIGN: Retrospective telephone surveys conducted with family members of veterans who received inpatient or outpatient care from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facility in the last month of life. SETTING: Five VA Medical Centers or their affiliated nursing homes and outpatient clinics. PARTICIPANTS: Veterans had received inpatient or outpatient care from a participating VA in the last month of life. One family member completed each survey. MEASUREMENTS: The telephone survey assessed nine aspects of the care the patient received in his or her last month of life: the patient's well-being and dignity (4 items), adequacy of communication (5 items), respect for treatment preferences (2 items), emotional and spiritual support (3 items), management of symptoms (4 items), access to the inpatient facility of choice (1 item), care around the time of death (6 items), access to home care services (4 items), and access to benefits and services after the patient's death (3 items). RESULTS: Interviews were completed with 524 respondents. In a multivariable linear regression model, after adjusting for the likelihood of receiving a palliative consultation (propensity score), palliative care patients had higher overall scores: 65 (95% confidence interval (CI)=62-66) versus 54 (95% CI=51-56; P<.001) and higher scores for almost all domains. Earlier consultations were independently associated with better overall scores (beta=0.003; P=.006), a difference that was attributable primarily to improvements in communication and emotional support. CONCLUSION: Palliative consultations improve outcomes of care, and earlier consultations may confer additional benefit.

Important aspects of end-of-life care among veterans: implications for measurement and quality improvement.

To identify aspects of end-of-life care in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system that are not assessed by existing survey instruments and to identify issues that may be unique to veterans, telephone interviews using open-ended questions were conducted with family members of veterans who had received care from a VA facility in the last month of life. Responses were compared to validated end-of-life care assessment instruments in common use. The study took place in four VA medical centers and one family member per patient was invited to participate, selected from medical records using predefined eligibility criteria. These family members were asked to describe positive and negative aspects of the care the veteran received in the last month of life. Interview questions elicited perceptions of care both at VA sites and at non-VA sites. Family reports were coded and compared with items in five existing prospective and retrospective instruments that assess the quality of care that patients receive near the end of life. Interviews were completed with 66 family members and revealed 384 codes describing both positive and negative aspects of care during the last month of life. Almost half of these codes were not represented in any of the five reference instruments (n=174; 45%). These codes, some of which are unique to the veteran population, were grouped into eight categories: information about VA benefits (n=36; 55%), inpatient care (n=36; 55%), access to care (n=33; 50%), transitions in care (n=32; 48%), care that the veteran received at the time of death (n=31; 47%), home care (n=26; 40%), health care facilities (n=12; 18%), and mistakes and complications (n=18; 27%). Although most of the reference instruments assessed some aspect of these categories, they did not fully capture the experiences described by our respondents. These data suggest that many aspects of veterans' end-of-life care that are important to their families are not assessed by existing survey instruments. VA efforts to evaluate end-of-life care for veterans should not only measure common aspects of care (e.g., pain management), but also examine performance in areas that are more specific to the veteran population.

Integrating digital systems: commitment and collaboration.

One year ago, the radiology department at Ball Memorial Hospital, a 350-bed facility in Muncie, IN, was completely film-based. The need to support a new all-digital, 35-room emergency department (ED) hastened the facility's transition to a digital environment. Today, with the exception of mammography, the hospital's imaging services are now digital. To develop and implement the project, the hospital formed an internal implementation team. An independent consultant was also hired to evaluate the impact of these new technologies and to provide an estimated cost payback. After research, site visits, and vendor demonstrations, the hospital selected a single vendor for its picture archiving and communication system (PACS), digital radiography (DR), computed radiography (CR), and overall project management. The DR system was installed in the ED to provide digital image capture for a full range of trauma exams. The ED also initially began utilizing a Web-based PACS distribution originally implemented for after-hours teleradiology. The majority of the hospital's imaging studies are captured with 2 multi-cassette CR systems that serve 7 exam rooms in the radiology department. The hospital also installed remote operations panels to expedite entry of patient and exam information. Technologists readily embraced both CR and DR systems. The Web distribution system now transmits images to hospital-based computers and to 150 remote referring physicians. The PACS platform automatically e-mails key images and radiology reports to referring physicians. Authorized physicians can also request reports and images on an as-needed basis. The PACS vendor had previously performed multiple integrations with the radiology information system (RIS) vendor; the integration of PACS and RIS was extremely smooth. One of the critical components of a successful conversion is experienced, dedicated management. The hospital retained professional project management services to facilitate implementation and to ensure adequate training for all users.