Implementing best practices through ACC's ACTION Registry and Patient Navigator Program may lead to an improvement in defect free care metrics and cardiac rehab referral rates, according to research presented at ACC's NCDR Annual Conference (NCDR.18) in Orlando.

Researchers at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center-Temple in Texas used ACC's ACTION Registry and Patient Navigator Program to develop a plan to ensure that all MI patients either received an outpatient cardiac rehab consult after discharge or a statement describing why cardiac rehab was not indicated.

The multidisciplinary cardiovascular care team created a hard stop in discharge module of the electronic health record system, which reminded doctors to refer patients for cardiac rehab, and increased education to ensure all doctors used the module appropriately. This resulted in an improvement in the defect free care metric – from 72 percent in September 2016 to 86 percent in October 2016. The increased education efforts further improved the results from 86 percent in October 2016 to 92 percent in December 2016. The defect free care and cardiac rehab referral rates were updated weekly in the ACTION Registry and reviewed by the Chest Pain Center Committee.

The researchers concluded that the process showcased how the ACTION Registry and Patient Navigator Program can be used to identify quality improvement opportunities. Going forward, stringent monitoring will be necessary to ensure the improvement in cardiac referral rates is maintained or increased even further, the researchers noted. In addition, the researchers reported they are using the same process to identify other data points that could affect the defect free care rate and are investigating strategies to improve those metrics.

Keywords: Quality Improvement, Patient Navigation, Outpatients, Pain Clinics, Research, Research Personnel, Registries, Referral and Consultation, Electronic Health Records, ACTION Registry, National Cardiovascular Data Registries

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