The Role of Electronic Feedback Loops in the Continuous Quality Improvement of Thyroid Nodule and Thyroid Cancer Care

Abstract

Physicians strive to achieve and society demands that the delivery of health care undergo continuous quality improvement. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine's report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, underscored the importance of improving the standards of care of our health care system and emphasized the goal of delivering personalized care for each patient ( 1. Insitute of Medicine Committee on Quality of Health Care in America Crossing the quality chasm: a new health system for the 21st century. National Academies Press, Washington, DC2001 Google Scholar ). In response to this report, the National Learning Consortium (NLC) was established as a “virtual and evolving body of knowledge and resources designed to support health care providers and IT professionals collaborating to achieving this end” ( 2. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) strategies to optimize your practice. National Learning Consortium; 2013. Google Scholar ). The NLC's strategy focused on “continuous quality improvement” (CQI), which emphasized the need to improve patient-specific quality of care through enhanced efficiency of data sharing between involved physicians as well as via electronic feedback loops as a mechanism to encourage continual self-assessment ( 2. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) strategies to optimize your practice. National Learning Consortium; 2013. Google Scholar ). Vital to this initiative was the adoption and use of electronic health record (EHR) systems, designed to efficiently record health data and facilitate the sharing of this health-related information between individual clinicians and their patients ( 2. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) strategies to optimize your practice. National Learning Consortium; 2013. Google Scholar ). While the concept of CQI can be broadly applied to health care, this model can also be employed to improve the quality of care of specific disease processes. Not only does enhancing quality of care lead to an improvement in patient outcomes, it also enhances patient safety and facilitates cost-effective utilization of precious health care resources. By establishing a culture as well as a mechanism for self-assessment, the development of feedback loops of patient information is vital to improve physician performance through continuous self-monitored modification and fine-tuning of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. Ultimately, the goal of this initiative is to eliminate the current clinical silos of specialties that serve as barriers to clinical information sharing.