Baseline Performance of Real-World Clinical Practice Within a Statewide Emergency Medicine Quality Network: The Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC)

Study objective Large-scale quality and performance measurement across unaffiliated hospitals is an important strategy to drive practice change. The Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative (MEDIC), established in 2015, has baseline performance data to identify practice variation across 15 diverse emergency departments (EDs) on key emergency care quality indicators. Methods MEDIC is a unique physician-led partnership supported by a major third-party payer. Member sites contribute electronic health record data and trained abstractors add supplementary data for eligible cases. Quality measures include computed tomography (CT) appropriateness for minor head injury, using the Canadian CT Head Rule for adults and Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Network rules for children; chest radiograph use for children with asthma, bronchiolitis, and croup; and diagnostic yield of CTs for suspected pulmonary embolism. Baseline performance was established with statistical process control charts. Results From June 1, 2016, to October 31, 2017, the MEDIC registry contained 1,124,227 ED visits, 23.2% for children ( Conclusion Performance varied greatly, with demonstrated opportunity for improvement. MEDIC provides a robust platform for emergency physician engagement across ED practice settings to improve care and is a model for other states.