NCMS staff recently visited the Hey Clinic in Raleigh to attend one of the scoliosis and spine surgery practice’s weekly Learning and Quality Meetings. Lloyd Hey, MD, MS and his medical team meet every Thursday morning to discuss the previous week’s surgeries, patient clinical experiences, and the upcoming week’s procedures. Staff and Dr. Hey also identify Very Important Patients (VIPs), meaning those who may have extraordinary circumstances during the course of their care, and discuss how to best meet the needs of those individuals.

The group uses this weekly time to evaluate new initiatives that are working in the office as well as to problem solve where improvements can be made. The Hey Clinic refers to this evaluation system as “ELI,” which stands for “Error, Learn and Improve.” As part of the practice’s quality initiatives and to keep patients well-informed of the care they are receiving, Dr. Hey sends each patient home with an easy-to-read clinic note and photo.  He also asks each patient (referred to as “guests”) to complete an exit questionnaire to evaluate their Hey Clinic experience.

These efforts in addition to grant-funded research that the Hey Clinic performs in conjunction with NC State University are intended to provide personalized and high-quality patient care to guests of the Hey Clinic.

With quality improvement at the forefront of Health System Reform, the NCMS is eager to share what physicians across the state are doing to meet the challenge.  Let us know if your practice has tools to share.