Episode 25: Quality Improvement Projects

March 14th, 2014

Improving Healthcare at the Undergraduate Level – Part 2

Undergraduate medical students at the University of Calgary have an opportunity to participate in quality improvement projects via Med 440, an Applied Evidence Based Medicine course. During this 120-hour course, students explore in depth an area of particular interest and complete 80 hours of elective time under the supervision of a preceptor. Students usually choose two clinical electives of 40 hours each to experience utilizing critical appraisal skills to address questions related to prognosis, investigation and/or treatment; but, for the first time this year students had the chance to work on a single quality improvement project for 80 hours instead. In this episode, two Med 440 students, Ryan Iwasiw and Bill Ressl, share their research and offer insight on what they learned.

Their projects:

• Ryan worked with Dr. Sachin Pendharkar in the Foothills Medical Centre Sleep Disorders Clinic. Together they examined patient flow in an attempt to decrease wait times at the clinic, which has been identified as a barrier to care. With the help of a research librarian, Ryan did a literature review to find out if an alternate care provider model could help reduce wait times at the clinic without decreasing the quality of care provided to patients.
• Bill worked with Dr. Maeve O’Beirne to try and reduce the number of women presenting with undiagnosed breech position at labour and delivery. Bill first wanted to know what the extent of the problem was, how many women were experiencing unexpected breech? Next, Bill examined the process for breech detection to see if they could improve it in any way.

After listening to this podcast, listeners will:
1.  Understand how the Med 440 course provides undergraduate students an opportunity to explore quality improvement projects in ways not available elsewhere in the               curriculum
2.  Learn how two students conduct their research and what findings they report at completion of their projects