Author Of 1 Presentation
P1111 - Timely Intervention, Monitoring and Education MATTERS in MS (TIME MATTERS in MS): global piloting of the MS Brain Health quality improvement tool (ID 1386)
Abstract
Background
A strategy for timely multiple sclerosis (MS) care was described in the policy report, Brain health: time matters in multiple sclerosis. Building on this report, multiple stakeholder groups participated in a modified Delphi process to define acceptable, good and high-quality brain health-focused MS care. These benchmarks were incorporated into an Excel-based quality improvement (QI) tool. The first prototype of this tool was piloted in three MS centers; local analysis of results led to improvements in clinical practice in those centers.
Objectives
We aimed to improve the clinical usability of the QI tool and to test the applicability of a refined version in different healthcare settings.
Methods
The recommendations from all three centers that participated in the initial pilot study were gathered and used to prepare a refined prototype of the QI tool (prototype II). MS centers worldwide have been invited to conduct a service evaluation using prototype II as part of a larger pilot study of 10–20 MS centers across a broad geographical area. Each participating site will review the medical records of 36 adults with MS (at representative stages of the care pathway) and input the data requested into the tool. To assess whether the QI tool can be applied in MS centers globally, study sites will be asked to complete a survey following their service evaluation. The survey asks about ease of use of the tool, its usefulness for facilitating local change, relevance of the data captured and key data for repeated use.
Results
Prototype II has separate spreadsheets for entering information on patients at different stages of the care pathway; fields are tailored to the different patient populations so there is less data to input per patient. Data validation programming prevents the insertion of invalid information. To assist MS centers in analyzing their findings, improved visual summaries of clinic-level and patient-level results are generated within the tool; these auto-populate when the required fields in the data input spreadsheets are completed. Prototype II will also support future language translations. More than 18 MS centers have so far expressed interest in trialing prototype II of the QI tool; preliminary insights from selected study sites will be presented.
Conclusions
Following further refinements, widespread roll-out of the QI tool will enable MS centers to collect data to benchmark their clinical standards and to support service improvement.