8th Annual Unified Quality Improvement Symposium

A multidisciplinary group of physicians, health professionals, care teams, residents, fellows and students came together Wednesday for the 9th annual ECU Health Quality Improvement Symposium at Eastern AHEC. With educational sessions, a keynote speaker, podium presentations and a poster session, the day was jam packed with quality improvement initiatives and ideas from across ECU Health and East Carolina University’s Health Sciences Campus.

Dr. Michael Waldrum, ECU Health CEO and dean of the Brody School of Medicine, provided opening remarks at the symposium and reflected on his personal journey in quality improvement, which began 35 years ago and continues today.

“And in that 35 years, so much has changed, but really so much hasn’t changed. The essence of collaboration and caring and love is the essence of quality,” said Dr. Waldrum.

“The fact that you all care about your environments and each other and the patients we serve is what inspired me 35 years ago. Now, with changing technologies like artificial intelligence and other impacts to the care environment, the essence of quality, caring, taking care of each other and loving each other has never been more important. Thank you for doing that and carrying that message out for our organization, working in your units every day and living our values. That is who we are at ECU Health as we create the model for rural health care and educate the future health care professionals.”

Dr. David Tillman, chair of the Department of Public Health at Campbell University, provided keynote remarks to the group of 143 in-person and 63 virtual attendees. His presentation, “Rooted in Rural: Enhancing Patient Care and Quality Improvement by Valuing the Rural Context,” focused on understanding how engagement with rural communities provides essential insights for effective and empathetic health care.

“I’m based at Campbell and get to work closely with the communities in eastern North Carolina as do so many of the attendees here, and so often the rural context is forgotten in the broader quality improvement context,” said Dr. Tillman. “Having this topic as the keynote puts ‘rural’ at the center of quality improvement efforts. You can’t just replicate quality improvement efforts in rural communities. Instead, you have to think deeply about how it applies.”

The symposium showcased more than 40 projects related to system improvement, practice redesign and other methods for improving quality within health care and here in eastern North Carolina. The projects, categorized into podium presentations, poster presentations and works-in-progress presentations, offer a snapshot of ECU Health and the Brody School of Medicine’s commitment to driving continuous quality improvement across the health enterprise.

Awards for the top podium and poster presentations were announced following the showcase.

Podium Presentation:

Outstanding Podium Presentation: Michelle Ball, MSN, RN, CCRN-K, CIC, Infection Prevention, ECU Health Medical Center – “Standardization of Skin Antisepsis for Hip Replacement Surgery

Honorable Mention Podium Presentation: Dr. Nusiebeh Redpath, Perinatal-Neonatal Medicine, ECU Health Medical Center – “Increasing Parenting Activities in the NICU by Parents with Very Preterm Neonates”

Quick shot podium presentation:

Outstanding Quick Shot Podium Presentation: Alissa Meyerhoffer, MS2, LINC Scholar, Brody School of Medicine, ECU – “Improving Patient Throughput at the ECU Health Pediatric Specialty Clinic”

Honorable Mention Quick Shot Podium Presentation: Pankti Sheth, MS4 LINC Scholar, Brody School of Medicine, ECU – “Timely Extubation in Low-Birth Weight Preterm Infants Using a Standardized Protocol”

Honorable Mention Quick Shot Podium Presentation: Dr. Greeshma Sheri, Department of Internal Medicine, Brody School of Medicine, ECU – “Improving Inpatient Sleep Quality”

Poster presentation:

First Place Poster Presentation: Mariam Tariq Awana, MD, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Brody School of Medicine, ECU – “Enhancing HIV PrEP Prescription Adherence through Physician Education and Assessment”

Second Place Poster Presentation: Aimee Dunn, BSN, RN, CCRN, SCRN, Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit, ECU Health Medical Center – “Targeted Interventions for CAUTI Prevention: A Success Story in Reducing Infection Rates in the NSICU”

Third Place Poster Presentation: Missy Barrow, MA, LSSGB, Internal Medicine Community, ECU Health Medical Center – “Communication Between Hospital Allied Health and Primary Care Practitioners: A Collaborative Approach to Improving Hospital Discharge Summaries”

Dr. Jennifer Sutter serves as the current physician director of the Quality Improvement Symposium, helping presenters with their projects and supporting the judges as they review each body of work. But it wasn’t long ago that she herself was standing at the podium presenting her quality improvement work. The experience, she said, can benefit health care professionals in powerful ways.

“As a presenter, it can be nerve wracking to put yourself out there, but you get so much great feedback that can help you move your project forward,” Dr. Sutter said. “From my standpoint now, it’s great to create this environment where that learning and growth can happen. It takes a team to do quality improvement, and we have people here from across the health system who are collaborating to do just that. There’s nothing better.”

The day closed with two educational sessions designed to help those in attendance take the day’s learning and apply it to their mission-driven work.

Erika Taylor, clinical faculty member and instructor in the Division of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, and Patricia Huerta, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, hosted “Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills for Medical Providers” to encourage health care providers to engage with a variety of coping skills to support their mental health and the mental health of their patients.

Randy Cobb, director of Talent Development at ECU Health, led a session called “Leading Change: Two Success Factors” where participants explored the importance of leading people through change by crafting a change plan via an interactive experience.

Story credit: ECU Health News