2018 Quality Improvement Symposium

2nd Annual Unified Quality Improvement Symposium

East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU 
January 31st, 2018

The Second Annual Unified Quality Improvement Symposium was held on January 31, 2018 at the East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU. The Symposium showcased 39 projects related to quality improvement, patient safety, population health and interprofessional practice from participants from all health sciences schools and Vidant Health, including three student innovation challenge submissions.

With over 160 people in attendance, the symposium provided Health Sciences faculty, residents, fellows, students, and Vidant Health physicians and employees the opportunity to present their quality improvement work to an audience of peers and health system leaders.

Award Winning Presentations

Podium

1st Place: 
Diana Layne, MSN, CPHQ, LSSBB, Clinical Quality, Vidant Medical Center
“A Collaborative Approach to Reducing Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infections.”

2nd Place: 
Pooja Sarin, M3, LINC Scholar, Brody School of Medicine
“Reducing the Rates of Newborn Hypothermia by Maintaining Delivery Temperatures of 77F During Cesarean Sections.”

3rd Place: 
Kate Gitzinger, MS, RN, CPNP, Newborn Services, Vidant Medical Center
“Interprofessional Education: A Powerful Tool for Improving Delivery Room Care and Competency.”

Poster

1st Place: 
Meera Patel, M2, LINC Scholar
“Reducing the Rate of Contaminated Blood Draws Coming from the ECU to the Microbiology Laboratory at VMC.”

2nd Place: 
Taj Nasser, M4, LINC Scholar, Brody School of Medicine
“From Bits to Bytes to Reality: Reduction in Patients Who Leave Without Treatment in the Emergency Department by using Computer Simulation to Redesign Nurse Staffing.”

3rd Place: 
Sujitha Nandi, MD, TQA 2.0 Graduate, Department of Internal Medicine
“ECU General Internal Medicine Inpatient Service Discharge before Noon Challenge.”

Student Innovation

For the second consecutive year, the symposium put out a call for submissions asking learners to describe an innovation that addresses an important need in the healthcare system. Simply put, they were asked to describe an innovation that specifically aims to improve the work life of those delivering care, including clinicians and staff. Three finalists were chosen to present their innovation, and crowd-polling mechanism was used to determine the overall winner of the challenge.

1st Place: 
Amber Gautam, M2, LINC Scholar, Ben Mack, M2, LINC Scholar, Chirag Patel, M2 LINC Scholar, Meera Patel, M2 LINC Scholar, and Noopur Doshi, M2, LINC Scholar
“Healing Healers: An Innovation Designed to Improve Provider Wellness in Rural Healthcare Settings.”

2nd Place: 
Holly Pittard, M1, Sanjana Prabbu, M1, Shivani Pandya, Graduate Student, Susan Woody, M1, and Taylor Ingram, Undergraduate Student
“Transferable and Accessible Health Records (TAHR).”

3rd Place: 
Richard Andresen, M3, LINC Scholar, Christopher Thomas, M3, MET Scholar, Madison Paul, M4, Andrew Obristich, M2, Sejal Shah, M2, Gina Calco, M2
“BurnOn: Addressing Medical Student Burnout through Collaborative Technology.”