Statistical Process Control: A Quality Tool for a Venous Thromboembolic Disease Registry

POSADAS-MARTINEZ, MARIA LOURDES; LILIANA ROJAS; FERNANDO VAZQUEZ; FERNAN QUIROS ; GABRIEL WAISMAN; DIEGO GIUNTA

Journal of Registry Management

National Cancer Registrars Associations

Año: 2016 vol. 43

1945-6123

Abstract: Objective: We aim to describe Statistical Control Process as a quality tool for the Institutional Registry of VenousThromboembolic Disease (IRTD), a registry developed in a community-care tertiary hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Methods: The IRTD is a prospective cohort. The process of data acquisition began with the creation of a computerizedalert generated whenever physicians requested imaging or laboratory study to diagnose venous thromboembolism, whichdefined eligible patients. The process then followed a structured methodology for patient?s inclusion, evaluation, andposterior data entry. To control this process, process performance indicators were designed to be measured monthly. Theseincluded the number of eligible patients, the number of included patients, median time to patient?s evaluation, and percentageof patients lost to evaluation. Control charts were graphed for each indicator. Results: The registry was evaluated in 93months, where 25,757 patients were reported and 6,798 patients met inclusion criteria. The median time to evaluation was20 hours (SD, 12) and 7.7% of the total was lost to evaluation. Each indicator presented trends over time, caused by structuralchanges and improvement cycles, and therefore the central limit suffered inflexions. Conclusion: Statistical processcontrol through process performance indicators allowed us to control the performance of the registry over time to detectsystematic problems. We postulate that this approach could be reproduced for other clinical registries.