Mortality improvement spurred by data

As an improvement accelerator, Vizient provides not only transparent comparative data but also strong support and expertise. After multiple conversations with Vizient’s data and performance improvement experts, Martin launched UCLA’s Clinical Quality Program in Neurosurgery with an interdisciplinary focus on understanding and improving risk-adjusted mortality. His energy and accountability were vital to this effort, which also engaged physicians and analytic support staff.

Realizing he needed help understanding UCLA’s risk-adjusted mortality in order to develop the appropriate interventions, Martin enlisted the support of Nasim Afsar-Manesh, MD, chief quality officer; Tom Rosenthal, MD, chief medical officer; and Molly Coye, MD, chief innovation officer.

Afsar-Manesh already had a good grasp of Vizient’s methodologies. She worked with Vizient to understand the drill-down capabilities, networking opportunities, and best practices for improving risk-adjusted mortality. This work revealed that the important, but understated, role of hospitalists was crucial to reducing neurosurgery mortality. Neurosurgeon Nader Pouratian, MD, and hospitalist Wendy Simon, MD, collaborated with Afsar-Manesh in using Vizient’s Clinical Data Base to retrospectively review three years’ worth of mortality data.

After working with Vizient to understand the risk-adjustment methodology, these clinicians realized the importance of focusing on both observed and expected mortality rates. They aimed to create a collaborative environment where this information could be transparent within UCLA and used for performance improvement initiatives. Several interventions were implemented:

• Using hospitalists
  Hospitalists achieved good results by managing comorbid conditions in other specialties, so UCLA emphasized the importance of using their expertise within neurosurgery.
• Developing a “code brain” protocol
  Patients with neurological deficits who did not meet specific stroke protocols often experienced delays in obtaining a CT scan. To address the problem, the emergency, neurological critical care, radiology, and neurosurgery departments created a more general protocol for acute neurological cases called “code brain.”
• Conducting weekly mortality reviews
  Mortality review is now a weekly process under the direction of Martin and the service line leaders. This change allows for more rapid implementation of action plans and specific follow-up activities to improve care. The review process also substantially improved clinician engagement. Pouratian, for example, points to these reviews as a learning experience.
• Creating documentation templates
  The Vizient risk-adjustment models showed clinicians the importance of appropriate documentation that helps coding specialists capture the severity of cases. The team turned documentation practices into standard templates to make clinicians’ workflow easier.
• Updating practices and software
  Vizient helped identify the fundamental mechanics of coding and documentation at UCLA. The team members discovered they were using old software that submitted no more than 25 diagnoses per case to the Vizient Clinical Data Base.
• Increasing use of palliative and hospice care
  This type of care was seen not only as a mechanism to improve risk-adjusted mortality but also as a best practice.