About the committee: The Children’s Hospital Clinical Practice Committee guides the way the Children’s Hospital takes care of its patients. The CHCPC serves as the approval body for the Children’s Hospital policies, guidelines, and protocols for care. The committee is interdisciplinary and involves many specialties including physicians, nurses, social workers, and childpyschiatry. The CHCPC has been in existence for more than five years. Meetings are held once a month and there are 30 members currently on the committee. Last year the CHCPC approved 25 guidelines and protocols.
About the process: Different departments or units determine the need for a guideline around patient care. Requests for approval come from more than one avenue. For example, requests may start at the bedside or the clinic exam table where clinicians determine a practice is not working or they may come from executive leadership of the Children’s Hospital who may want a new practice that is evidence-based. Be Safe events (imagine a team member falling over) are another avenue where a policy, guideline or protocol may begin.
Next, the committee vets requests and sees that they are posted in the Children’s Hospital Manual on the intranet. The CHCPC of the Children’s Hospital reports directly to the CSEC. CSEC or Clinical Staff Executive Committee is comprised of the senior leaders of every department and the Hospital.
The time frame for approval varies depending on the complexity of the issue. The process involves the care team making a presentation, a group discussion, edits and changes, and the final approval.
About the Co-chairs: Janet Allaire, MA, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Ambulatory Services for Women and Children, and Dr. Paul Matherne, MD, MBA, Professor of Pediatrics, and Associate Chief Medical Officer of the Children’s Hospital, play an integral role as the co-chairs of the committee.
“Children’s care is simply different. You can’t just make adult policies smaller,” explains Jan. She has been involved from the beginning and has been a co-chair for the last two years. “There is hard work involved in being a committee member – the work is very detail driven and there is always plenty to do,” says Jan.
“We want to ensure that every child at the UVA Children’s Hospital gets the same care here that they would receive at the Best Children’s Hospital in the World,” explains Paul.
“Standardizing our care will allow us to move forward. We are focusing on improving quality initiatives and measuring the outcome. If there are three different ways to do a procedure, that leads to variation, which leads to errors. If there is a standard, everyone is better prepared. That’s why we are passionate about this work,” says Jan. “The most rewarding part for me is seeing the team come together and come to a consensus about a care issue. The policy documentation is a byproduct; it’s about the outcome. When we look at the reports and see that the numbers of infections have decreased significantly, that’s what is important.”
Paul’s answer to why serving as a co-chair is rewarding? “Don’t tell anyone, but this is a very easy job because Jan does all the real work, but it is very rewarding to work with the dedicated and talented team we have at the UVA Children’s Hospital.”
Filed Under: Features