Congratulations to the Advanced Quality Education Series (AQES) 2022 projects that were accepted! The AQES 2022 series will kick off in February 2022 with the projects listed supporting improving patient experience, reducing complications/readmissions, reducing mortality and patient safety.

1. Nursing Education and Support in the Care of Patients with Serious Illnesses  – Inpatient Palliative Care Service UPMC Presbyterian-Montefiore Division of General Medicine
The goal of this project is to improve nursing education regarding end-of-life care in their nursing curriculum and training in school. The team will address the gap of knowledge in the transition from nursing school to the acute care setting and equip professional nurses with palliative nursing knowledge to deliver holistic comprehensive care to patients and their families. They will work to improve education in symptom management, and communication with patients and families which can result in patients with existential distress, nurses experiencing moral distress, longer length of stays and increases in hospital cost.

2. Choosing Wisely in the ICU – UPMC Community Osteopathic, UPMC Central PA 
“Choosing Wisely Guidelines” include 10 points which help improve patient care and safety, while also being cost conscious. The project focus is to provide education and daily evaluation of blood work and x-ray studies ordered on ICU patients at Community Osteopathic ICU and focus on limiting them if not needed for patient care.  This project will then be expanded to all 7 medical ICU’s at UPMC Central PA.

3. Implementation of Updated Asthma Management Guidelines: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching, Learning and Application  – UPMC Children’s Community Pediatrics (CCP), UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) and General Academic Pediatrics (GAP)
The project goal is to improve asthma care of pediatric patients with an asthma diagnosis through improved education and collaboration amongst all stakeholders, implementation of the new asthma update guidelines, and development of meaningful asthma action plans and patient outcome reporting. The aim is to standardize asthma care across our system and severity of disease and identify barriers to care, enhance communication with PCP, Specialist, Schools, etc. to increase medication compliance and improve the health of pediatric asthma patients and decrease the burden to the healthcare system by lowering cost and unplanned care.

4. Inpatient Rehab Discharge Education and Training Optimization – CARF Accreditation  – Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Rehabilitation Unit 
The goal of this project is to provide the caregiver and patient discharge education and training to enable a safe and successful transition to home.  In addition, the second part of the project is to assess patients using a Psychosocial Assessment Tool (PAT) and integrate the findings to individualize our programs based on the psychological, social, and economic needs of the people we serve, to enhance our team’s ability to provide equitable care, and to improve the durability of our outcomes.

5. Reducing Healthcare Acquired Pressure Injuries in the Acute Care Setting – UPMC Western Maryland
The project aim is to reduce the rate of HAPI events by identifying and improving current processes and prevention strategies.

If you are interested in any Wolff Learning Academy’s annual quality improvement education courses, please contact Stephanie Knoch at the Wolff Center at UPMC.