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BMJ Quality Improvement Report
Electronic medical record alert improves HCV testing for baby boomers in primary care setting: adults born during 1945–1965
  1. Eyad Al-hihi1,
  2. Caylin Shankweiler1,
  3. David Stricklen2,
  4. Cheryl Gibson3,
  5. Winston Dunn4
  1. 1 Department of General and Geriatric Medicine, The University of Kansas Health System, Kansas, USA
  2. 2 Department of Organizational Improvement, The University of Kansas Health System, Kansas, USA
  3. 3 Department of Internal Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas, USA
  4. 4 Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, The University of Kansas Health System, Kansas, USA
  1. Correspondence to Caylin Shankweiler, Department of General Internal Medicine, The University of Kansas Health System, Kansas 66160, USA; cshankweiler{at}kumc.edu

Abstract

Method This project aims to implement the HCV birth cohort screening guidelines over a 9-month period in the primary care setting at the University of Kansas Health System General Internal Medicine Division.The project team measured the number of patients in the baby boomer population who received a one-time screen for HCV. An electronic medical record (EMR) intervention was implemented to identify baby boomers who did not have an HCV screening or diagnosis. Additionally, education was provided to all primary care providers in the clinic to increase awareness of the HCV birth cohort screening.

Results The quality improvement methods increased the percentage of baby boomers who obtained a one-time screening test for HCV from a baseline of 30% to a 55% screening rate during the nine-month project period.

Conclusion Identifying the HCV screening needs and creating a visual reminder in the EMR can be used to facilitate sustainable awareness and improvement of screening rates. The project team recognizes that continued work is required to close the HCV screening care gaps in the primary care setting.

  • primary care
  • quality improvement
  • healthcare quality improvement
  • PDSA

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2017-000084

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors CS takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review and publication process.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval The quality improvement protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Kansas Medical Center.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.