CHECKLIST FOR HEAD INJURY MANAGEMENT EVALUATION STUDY (CHIMES)
A Quality Improvement Project to reduce the percentage of patients presenting with head injuries who receive a CT scan of their brain.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Head injuries are a commonly encountered presentation in emergency departments and account for over 1 million cases in North America annually. More than 90% of these patients are ultimately diagnosed with minor head injuries that do not require admission to hospital or neurosurgical intervention. There has been significant practice variation in the diagnosis of minor head injuries and the utilization of neuro-imaging for these patients. Recent data from 11 Canadian emergency departments showed that rates of CT utilization amongst emergency physicians varied upwards of 20-fold. In an attempt to improve resource utilization and reduce patient harm, the Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC) campaign, a quality improvement initiative, was launched on June 2, 2015. One of the key recommendations made for emergency physicians by the CWC campaign was to not order CT scans for patients with minor head injury unless indicated by a validated clinical decision tool such as the Canadian Head CT rule.
PROJECT LEADS
Sameer Masood, Lucas Chartier
Team members: Anil Chopra, Kathy Bates RN, Sam Sabbah, Debra Davies, Stephen Casey, Brittany Jenkins, Steven Friedman, Joo Hyung Yoon
Term of project: February- June 2017