Numerous publications have highlighted the need to measure and constantly improve quality in our healthcare system. Infectious Diseases (ID) physicians’ impact the quality of healthcare both at patients’ bedside but also through their infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship activities that are focused on improving quality at the systems-level.
The resources below are designed to help ID physicians understand the current state of quality improvement and the transition towards a value driven healthcare system that publicly reports providers performance and pays for high quality outcomes.
Misdiagnosis of UTI in Women Technical Expert Panel
Signup Deadline: 2-12-2022
Starts: 03-1-2022
Ends: 08-31-2023
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Purpose:
Through funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are developing a measure on the misdiagnosis of urinary tract infection (UTI) in women. Nearly half of all patients with asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) are misdiagnosed with UTI and are ultimately overprescribed antibiotics. Inappropriate treatment of misdiagnosed UTI is associated with greater risk of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), 90-day hospital readmission, and increased hospital length of stay. The goal of this effort is to reduce misdiagnosis of UTI by measuring the appropriate use of urinary culture testing only in the presence of UTI symptoms in accordance with evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The primary desired outcome is to correctly diagnose ASB rather than UTI, and the secondary outcomes are to reduce antimicrobial overprescribing, antimicrobial resistance, and CDI. Please read the TEP Charter for additional details. To develop the measure, a technical expert panel (TEP) composed of clinical experts as well as patients, families and/or caregivers will be convened that represents a diversity of backgrounds, values, and perspectives. In addition to patient, family, and caregiver input, clinical expertise will be sought in the areas of infectious diseases, primary care, obstetrics-gynecology, and emergency medicine.
Responsibilities:
The responsibility of the TEP is to provide information, support, feedback, and perspective on the development, specification, and testing of clinical quality measures that reduce the misdiagnosis of asymptomatic bacteriuria as UTIs in women.
Qualifications:
We are seeking individuals with differing perspectives and areas of expertise including:
- infectious diseases clinicians and other clinician experts involved in the diagnosis and treatment of women with UTIs, ASB and c. diff—including primary care providers, obstetrician-gynecologists and emergency medicine specialists
- patients, their family, and caregivers with lived experience of antimicrobial resistant infections, CDI, ASB or UTI
- individuals with experience in the development and implementation of quality measures that are meaningful to clinicians, patients, and caregivers alike;
- individuals with expertise in data science, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing (NLP); and
- individuals with expertise and experience in the areas of patient safety, quality improvement, and innovation.
Number of Members Needed:
12
Composition:
The TEP will be composed of a Chair and 12 members.
Meeting Frequency:
6 quarterly meetings, starting in March 2022 and ending in June 2023. The TEP will meet by teleconference or videoconference quarterly for approximately 90 minutes. There will be approximately 1 hour of pre-work and 1-hour of post-work per scheduled meeting.
Expected Time Commitment:
The total time commitment of approximately 12 hours per year.
Method of Appointment:
Members are appointed by the IDSA Quality Improvement Committee in consultation with the American Institutes of Research (AIR)
Term of Office:
The TEP members will hold a minimum 18-month term with possible extension
Accountability:
The TEP is accountable to IDSA’s Quality Improvement Committee
Staff Liaison:
Thomas Kim, IDSA Senior Program Officer
How to Apply
- Provide a completed TEP Nomination form.
- Provide a brief statement of interest (not to exceed 2 pages) highlighting your knowledge and/or lived experience relevant to the TEP and your involvement in measure development.
- Note: There is no expectation that patient/family/caregiver applicants have experience in measure development. These applicants can describe their interest in the topic.
- Provide a copy of your curriculum vitae (CV) or a summary of relevant experience (including publications) for a maximum of 10 pages.
- Note: There is no requirement for consumer/patient/family (caregiver) applicants/nominees to submit a CV.
- Submit your disclosures via the IDSA Conflict of Interest Form (PDF)
Send your TEP Nomination Form, CV/summary of relevant experience, and completed Conflict of Interest Form with “Nomination” in the subject line to MooreProject-AIR-IDSA@air.org. The documents are due by 5pm Eastern time on Saturday, February 12, 2022.
Public Comment Opportunities
No public comment opportunities at this moment.
Quality Improvement Measure Concepts
As publisher of clinical practice guidelines and other guidance, IDSA has taken a leadership role in generating concepts for quality improvement measures specific to the best practices associated with the treatment of infectious diseases.
Available measure concepts:
- Staphylococcus aureus Measures Set
- 72 hour Review of Antibiotic Therapy for Sepsis
- Appropriate Use of Anti-MRSA Antibiotics
- Guideline Recommended Treatment of Clostridioides difficile Infection (CDI)
Please fill out the form below to download and view the measure concepts.
The measure concepts include numerator, denominator, exclusion statement, and supporting body of evidence for each measure.
We are open to productive collaboration with hospital systems, payers, and other health care stakeholders.
As the healthcare payment system continues to shift towards value-based reimbursement, the IDSA Quality Improvement Committee (QIC) will continue to report and support the development of ID-specific measures that demonstrate the value of ID physicians in performing quality improvement activities. In 2018, the QIC published an article, reporting the current MIPS measures related to antibotic administration, vaccination and diagnosis of infections in adults. However, the MIPS measures lack metrics that guide payers on the value of ID specialty care. The article discusses the benefits of evaluating ID specific measures through a Qualified Clinical Data Registry to satisfy MIPS reporting; and the development of measures from guideline-based management of patients with infectious diseases. In order to accurately report quality improvement activites that demonstrate the value of ID specialty care to payers, we reccomend developing a mix of patient-level outcomes and process-level measures.