Providers frequently issue orders for telemetry (continuous ECG monitoring) of hospital inpatients, but they rarely issue orders to discontinue telemetry. This can cause telemetry beds to be unavailable for patients who need them.

Our hospital health technology assessment (HTA) center conducted a rapid systematic review of evidence on algorithms, guidelines, and other tools for nurses to identify patients who no longer need telemetry. Databases searched included Medline, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, National Guideline Clearinghouse, and Joanna Briggs Institute.

We found no guidelines or existing systematic reviews of nurse-driven protocols for discontinuing telemetry. There were three published articles describing projects where protocols for discontinuing telemetry were tested. All three of these studies were of low methodologic quality. They all found that use of the protocol reduced the number of hours of telemetry monitoring that were used in the hospital. Two studies published in letter form reported adaptations of computerized order entry systems where nurses assess the patient's readiness for discontinuing telemetry and either discontinue telemetry or report to the ordering physician when the stated discontinuation criteria are met.

Our hospitals are now implementing the HTA findings in our electronic ordering system.

The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) program sponsors the development of systematic reviews to inform clinical policy and practice. The EPC program sought to better understand how health systems identify and use this evidence.

Representatives from eleven EPCs, the EPC Scientific Resource Center, and AHRQ developed a semi-structured interview script to query a diverse group of nine Key Informants (KIs) involved in health system quality, safety and process improvement about how they identify and use evidence. Interviews were transcribed and qualitatively summarized into key themes.

All KIs reported that their organizations have either centralized quality, safety, and process improvement functions within their system, or they have partnerships with other organizations to conduct this work. There was variation in how evidence was identified, with larger health systems having medical librarians and central bureaus to gather and disseminate information and smaller systems having local chief medical officers or individual clinicians do this work. KIs generally prefer guidelines, especially those with treatment algorithms, because they are actionable. They like systematic reviews because they efficiently condense study results and reconcile conflicting data. They prefer information from systematic reviews to be presented as short digestible summaries with the full report available on demand. KIs preferred systematic reviews from reputable entities and those without commercial bias. Some of the challenges KIs reported include how to resolve conflicting evidence, the generalizability of evidence to local needs, determining whether the evidence is up-to-date, and the length of time required to generate reviews. The topics of greatest interest included predictive analytics, high-value care, advance care planning, and care coordination. To increase awareness of AHRQ EPC reviews, KIs suggest alerting people at multiple levels in a health-system when new evidence reports are available and making reports easier to find in common search engines.

Systematic reviews are valued by health system leaders. To be most useful they should be easy to locate and available in different formats targeted to the needs of different audiences.

Calling in staff and preparing the operating room for an urgent surgical procedure is a significant draw on hospital resources and disrupts care of other patients. It has been common practice to treat open fractures on an urgent basis. HTA methods can be applied to examine this prioritization of care, just like they can be applied to the acquisition of drugs and devices.

Our center completed a rapid systematic review of guidelines, systematic reviews, and primary clinical evidence, on urgent surgical debridement and stabilization of open fractures of long bones (“urgent” being defined as within six hours of the injury) compared to surgical debridement and reduction performed at a later time point. Meta-analyses were performed for infection and non-union outcomes and the GRADE system was used to assess the strength of evidence for each conclusion.

We found no published clinical guidelines for the urgency of treating open fractures. A good systematic review on the topic was published in 2012. We found six cohort studies published since completion of the earlier review. The summary odds ratio for any infection in patients with later treatment was 0.97 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78–1.22, sixteen studies, 3,615 patients) and for deep or “major” infections was 1.00 (95% CI 0.74–1.34, nine studies, 2,013 patients). The summary odds ratio of non-union with later treatment was 0.95 (95% CI 0.65–1.41, six studies, 1,308 patients). There was no significant heterogeneity in any of the results (I-squared = 0 percent) and no apparent trends in the results as a function of study size or publication date. We graded the strength of each of the conclusions as very low because they were based on cohort studies where the treating physician could elect immediate treatment for patients with severe soft-tissue injuries or patients at risk of complications. This raises the risk of spectrum bias.

Default urgent scheduling of patients with open fractures for surgical debridement and stabilization does not appear to reduce the risk of infection or fracture non-union. Based on this information, our surgery department managers no longer schedule patients with open fractures for immediate surgery unless there are specific circumstances necessitating it.

Misdiagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria as catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) leads to unnecessary tests and other low-value care. We used this topic as the prototype to develop a clinical pathways program to promote evidence-based decision making in a multi-hospital system.

We convened a task force including hospital and critical care physicians, nurses, laboratory staff, and informatics specialists. Our Health Technology Asessment (HTA) center completed a rapid systematic review on guidelines and algorithms for diagnosing CAUTI. Additional rapid reviews were completed as necessary to address specific follow-up questions. A draft pathway based on the guidelines was developed, and then the task force edited it in an iterative process.

We used the Dorsata platform (Dorsata Inc., Washington, DC) to create, distribute and maintain the pathway. Dorsata has both desktop and mobile interfaces that guide clinicians through decision algorithms. Individual pathways include links to references and a portal for direct user feedback. Pathway owners have access to a real-time pathway utilization dashboard.

A standardized order set with the pathway was added to our electronic health record system. We also held educational meetings for residents and provided “huddle sheets” to nurse educators at each hospital. Posters and computer screen savers were also used to raise awareness of the new pathway.

We now have a total of 111 pathways on Dorsata, developed following the same model as the CAUTI evaluation pathway. Some topics, like breast cancer, have as many as sixteen pathways, addressing different clinical questions like first- and second-line therapy. Over 600 individuals have registered for the mobile app, including attending and resident physicians, nurses, and medical students. The pathway site had 1,619 views in December 2016, the most recent month for which complete records are available. The pathways are proving to have an effect on clinical decision making. For example, the annualized number of unnecessary urine cultures avoided as a result of the pathway is 4,474; resulting in estimated direct cost savings of USD67,110.

Using pathways to present HTA information at the point of care is feasible and can improve the value of care.

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) methods are usually applied to the evaluation of drugs, devices, and procedures. We have used HTA to promote evidence-based decision-making on topics relating to staffing and career development for healthcare professionals. Interventions to reduce the stress associated with caring for patients who need repeated hospitalization such as patients with sickle cell disease are thought to improve job satisfaction and nurse retention, but is there scientific evidence to support them?

We systematically searched Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane, and Joanna Briggs Institute databases for published studies evaluating interventions targeting healthcare personnel. Searches combined tems for sickle cell disease with terms for job stress, turnover, and other career-related outcomes. We evaluated the quality of individual studies using standardized checklists and constructed evidence tables.

We found one randomized trial (RCT) of an education program for nurses and physicians, a pre-post analysis of a communication skills and cultural awareness program, and a case study of a nurse support group. The RCT found that an education program significantly improved participants attitude towards patients but did not measure any outcomes relating to caregiver stress or job satisfaction. The pre-post study found that a communication skills program significantly improved nurses confidence in their ability to communicate with patients. The case study reported that nurses found the support group useful and felt their attitudes were improved, but there was no control group to compare their responses to. The education program was graded as moderate-strength evidence and the other programs had low-strength evidence. There was no meta-analysis or other data synthesis of the results because of the differing interventions and outcome measures.

There have been few quantitative scientific evaluations of the effectiveness of interventions to reduce the stress nurses feel when caring for sickle cell disease patient. The studies that have been published have favorable conclusions towards these interventions, but the strength of evidence is not high.

Risk prediction scores have been devised to identify patients at increased risk for Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in different patient populations and settings. Guideline recommendations for VTE risk assessment vary greatly. We performed a systematic review to synthesize evidence on clinical risk prediction scores for VTE in hospitalized medical and surgical patients.

We systematically searched Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane, National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), National Guidelines Clearinghouse (NGC), and Guidelines International Network (GIN) databases up to March 2016. We included studies validating risk prediction scores for adult hospitalized patients. We excluded studies for any of the following reasons: non-English publication, conducted in non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, validation cohorts focused solely on critical care patients, or scores developed for specific surgical or medical sub-specialty populations. We plotted receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of included studies and performed summary ROC meta-analyses for scores in which >1 external validation studies were combinable. Risk of bias was assessed qualitatively. We assessed the strength of the evidence base using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE).

We screened 110 primary studies and included 18 of those for analysis. There were seven studies of the Caprini score, three studies of the Padua score, two studies of the IMPROVE score; and one study each of the Arcelus, Geneva, Khorana, RAP, and Kucher scores . Strength of evidence was downgraded for study risk of bias because most studies disproportionately included patients at high risk of VTE. Our summary estimates of the performance of the three combinable scores at clinically-relevant thresholds are: Caprini score at a threshold of three in surgical patients – 96 percent sensitivity, 44 percent specificity; IMPROVE at a threshold of one in medical patients – 96 percent sensitivity, 20 percent specificity; and Padua at a threshold of 4–87 percent sensitivity and 58 percent specificity.

There is moderate strength evidence for use of the Caprini score to predict VTE in surgical patients and for the Padua and IMPROVE scores in medical patients. Lower thresholds may be warranted to achieve sufficient sensitivity to identify low risk populations who may not require routine VTE prophylaxis. Studies making direct comparisons of risk prediction scores in similar patient populations are lacking and are necessary to ascertain which score is most effective.