GOALS:
VERDICT investigators are identifying new opportunities for improving care within the clinical microsystem for
veterans with healthcare problems that are complex, that have resisted standard methods of quality improvement,
and/or are understudied.
In addition to currently funded and submitted work, VERDICT investigators will focus on the following priorities based upon our theme of clinical microsystems during our next 5-year funding cycle (2007-2013).
- Within the outpatient setting, to identify the structures and processes that are associated with successful coordination of care as multiple clinical microsystems (primary care, speciality care, ancillary services, etc) interact to provide care for complex patients with multimorbidity;
- Within the inpatient setting, design and pilot test the feasibility of an intervention to improve outcomes of critically ill veterans in the clinical microsystem of the ICU by focusing on the interdependencies and the shared tasks of the ICU staff themselves and with supporting services (pharmacy, respiratory therapy, etc); and
- To advance theory by assessing whether quality improvement strategies that take advantage of the fact that clinical microsystems are complex adaptive systems achieve better results than those interventions which do not.
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