Raising the bar: Utilizing quality improvement tools to increase compliance with clinical care guidelines in inflammatory bowel disease patients.

Abstract

Patients admitted for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are often managed by rotating teams of care providers during their hospital stay. This can lead to potential variability in the care they receive. Our team developed a scoring system of six key high-quality care components called the standardized IBD care index (SICI) to standardize care management. A multi-phase implementation was conducted to improve adherence to SICI components. At baseline, compliance with the SICI score was approximately 45%, with a goal of 75% post implementation. After implementation, we were able to exceed our goal of 75% compliance with sustained success for the entirety of the study period. This project demonstrates that standardizing care practices can reduce physician-dependent variability and have measurable improvements in the quality of care provided for IBD patients.