While many providers exclusively practicing interventional radiology hold formal meetings to review adverse events, nearly one-third still aren’t utilizing such quality improvement programs.
Most specialties lean on morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences to review negative outcomes and implement practice changes to avoid similar events in the future. Yet there’s little insight into whether IR has widely adopted M&M meetings, despite studies showing their potential to enhance care.
To better understand this issue, UC Davis doctors surveyed members of the Society of Interventional Radiology and shared their findings Wednesday in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.
Approximately 90% of university-based professionals hold formal reviews, compared to 37% in other IR settings, the survey results revealed. Respondents cited a lack of time and logistical challenges as their top impediments to meeting.
“It is clear, though…that an M&M conference, properly undertaken, makes it possible for a clinical service like IR to identify the parameters and events that might have contributed to an unintended outcome, and can thereby reduce the risk of another occurrence,” R. Torrance Andrews, MD, and colleagues with Davis Medical Center’s Department of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, explained.
Just over 600 SIR members responded to the 10-question survey, with 37.8% working in academic institutions and 60% in non-university environments, among others. Approximately 43% solely practiced interventional radiology, while 28.5% did so for at least three-quarters of their time and 11% less than half their time.
Andrews et al. found 71.1% of those completing at least three-fourths of interventional services utilized M&M conferencing compared to 28.8% of respondents providing IR procedures 75% of their time or less.
Additionally, conferences were most often held monthly or more frequently (66.6% of respondents), with 20% bringing in providers from multiple disciplines. And those who participated in M&M meetings reported meeting quality goals at “very high rates.”
Nearly 300 interventionalists not using formal meetings said time constraints, size of their practice and medicolegal risks, among other reasons, were keeping them from undertaking M&M discussions.
“Nonetheless, assuming that these challenges can be overcome, the current survey and prior publications suggest that adding M&M to the QA program in a practice can have important benefits: quality of care can be improved and future events might either be avoided or managed in a more successful manner,” the authors concluded.
You can read the entire study here.
Matt joined Chicago’s TriMed team in 2018 covering all areas of health imaging after two years reporting on the hospital field. He holds a bachelor’s in English from UIC, and enjoys a good cup of coffee and an interesting documentary.