Impact of an electronic medical record-based clinical decision support tool for dysphagia screening on care quality.

View Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Dysphagia screening (DS) before oral intake in patients with acute stroke is a hospital-level performance measure. We report outcomes of an initiative to improve compliance to this quality measure.

METHODS

The design was a pre- versus postintervention comparison study. The Intervention was an electronic medical record-based clinical DS system embedded within stroke admission orders. The clinical DS was designed to facilitate DS in patients with stroke. The primary outcome was compliance to a process measure in patients with ischemic stroke: performance of a swallow screen before oral intake.

RESULTS

DS measure compliance increased from 36% to 74% (P=0.001). Chart audits found screened patients were more likely to have clinical DS-embedded admission orders initiated or stroke unit admission.

CONCLUSIONS

The electronic medical record offers a ready platform for clinical DS implementation. DS is a difficult performance measure to improve. The described clinical DS has the potential for improving performance on this challenging care quality measure.

Investigators
Abbreviation
Stroke
Publication Date
2012-10-02
Volume
43
Issue
12
Page Numbers
3399-401
Pubmed ID
23033346
Medium
Print-Electronic
Full Title
Impact of an electronic medical record-based clinical decision support tool for dysphagia screening on care quality.
Authors
Lakshminarayan K, Rostambeigi N, Fuller CC, Peacock JM, Tsai AW