Radiology quality improvement initiatives: Are virtual formats here to stay?
Virtual formats can benefit quality improvement initiatives by enabling leaders across institutions to manage multiple projects while still offering their teams support.
The majority of healthcare organizations found themselves having to pivot to virtual meetings and conferences at the height of COVID. At the time, these transitions were challenging but as the acute impact of COVID has since cooled off, many departments have now warmed up to the idea of virtual management practices, especially when it comes to quality improvement initiatives, according to the authors of a new paper published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
In the paper, corresponding author David Larson, MD, MBA, of the Department of Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine and colleagues detailed the planning of an in-person quality improvement (QI) training project that started in March 2020. During the planning phase, the project was abruptly forced into a virtual format due to COVID, but by the time it wrapped in December of 2020, benefits of the virtual format had become evident to all who were involved.
“By Mid-March, the exigencies of the pandemic required that the program be redesigned for a virtual format,” the authors wrote. “This redirection provided an unanticipated opportunity to test the viability of the QI program in a virtual environment, involving multiple institutions.”
The training method the organization turned to was developed by Stanford in 2016—the Realizing Improvement through Team Empowerment (RITE) program. The program uses team-based and project-based approaches to QI and consists of ten 2-hour training sessions every two weeks for a total of 18 weeks.
Starting in July of 2020, two institutions began a revised, COVID-friendly version of the training, conducting meetings, coaching and training sessions virtually through December 2020. Between the institutions, numerous goals were set, including decreasing the incidence of patient safety events in the radiology department and increasing the percentage of scanner time spent in MRI imaging acquisition during peak hours, among others.
Those who participated in the virtual QI projects were satisfied or highly satisfied with their experiences, according to survey responses given after the program’s completion. Most indicated a willingness to participate again, and nearly all participants recommended the program for other initiatives.
While each individual departmental goal was not reached in its entirety, each project did render substantial improvements.
“We found that a QI training and project support program can be conducted in a virtual environment to simultaneously support multiple projects at multiple institutions,” the authors wrote, adding that such programs could improve overall site performance without coming at a hefty cost.
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.