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Observational Study
. 2015 Jan-Mar;18(1):52-7.
doi: 10.4103/0971-9784.148322.

Impact of the International Quality Improvement Collaborative on outcomes after congenital heart surgery: a single center experience in a developing economy

Rakhi Balachandran, Mahesh Kappanayil, Amitabh Chanchal Sen  1 , Abhish Sudhakar, Suresh G Nair, G S Sunil, R Benedict Raj, Raman Krishna Kumar
Affiliations
Observational Study

Impact of the International Quality Improvement Collaborative on outcomes after congenital heart surgery: a single center experience in a developing economy

Rakhi Balachandran et al. Ann Card Anaesth. 2015 Jan-Mar.

Abstract

Background: The International Quality Improvement Collaborative (IQIC) for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries was initiated to decrease mortality and major complications after congenital heart surgery in the developing world.

Objective: We sought to assess the impact of IQIC on postoperative outcomes after congenital heart surgery at our institution.

Methods: The key components of the IQIC program included creation of a robust worldwide database on key outcome measures and nurse education on quality driven best practices using telemedicine platforms. We evaluated 1702 consecutive patients ≤18 years undergoing congenital heart surgery in our institute from January 2010-December 2012 using the IQIC database. Preoperative variables included age, gender, weight at surgery and surgical complexity as per the RACHS-1 model. The outcome variables included, in- hospital mortality, duration of ventilation, intensive care unit (ICU) stay, bacterial sepsis and surgical site infection.

Results: The 1702 patients included 771(45.3%) females. The median age was 8 months (0.03-216) and the median weight was 6.1Kg (1-100). The overall in-hospital mortality was 3.1%, Over the three years there was a significant decline in bacterial sepsis (from 15.1%, to 9.6%, P < 0.001), surgical site infection (11.1% to 2.4%, P < 0.001) and duration of ICU stay from 114(8-999) hours to 72 (18-999) hours (P < 0.001) The decline in mortality from (4.3% to 2.2%) did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions: The inclusion of our institution in the IQIC program was associated with improvement in key outcome measures following congenital heart surgery over a three year period.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Key driver diagram
Figure 2
Figure 2
Outcome trends over three years: Mortality and infection data
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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