ECRI Blog

Refresh your evidence assessment knowledge of important topics discussed at ECRI's Evidence boot camp event: Effective Methods for Rapidly Assessing the Best Available Evidence. 

Healthcare payers, providers, and other audiences gathered this past fall to gain strategic insights in discussion about clinical evidence assessment of healthcare technologies. The event was backed by an experienced team consisting of multi-disciplinary experts across ECRI–PhD-level analysts and directors from Clinical Evidence Assessment, Clinical Excellence, Evidence-based Practice Center; Master-level Librarians; and guest panelists, who made the event interactive and informative.

Key learning objectives included:

• Demonstrate key clinical evidence concepts

• Understand considerations for choosing The Evidence Bar™, an at-a-glance visual representation of the balance of benefits and harms, in ECRI’s rapid clinical evidence assessment reports about healthcare technologies

• Identify real-world evidence examples and considerations in clinical evidence assessment and decision-making

• Recognize the highest standards and evolving tools employed in ECRI’s rapid assessment of the best available evidence

Two full years after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus first appeared, the world is still grappling with this highly contagious, infectious disease. The state of the virus has ebbed and flowed: periods of declining spread are followed by the emergence of new variants; the delta variant dominated 2021, and in just the past month, the omicron variant was classified by the World Health Organization as a "variant of concern."

Perhaps the most hopeful development in protecting individuals from severe illness related to COVID-19 has been the advent of several vaccines. They are especially important for those at greatest risk for the worst outcomes of COVID-19, such as the elderly or immunocompromised, as well as healthcare workers whose jobs place them at increased risk of exposure. And yet, vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge in the United States and worldwide. 

This position statement provides real time information to support policy decisions. This excerpt is from “Rethinking Patient Discharge: A Low-cost Opportunity for Healthcare Efficiency Gains” (Caligiuri C, Penzo-Mendez A, Mueller B. 2021 Dec). 

Patient discharge delays are a source of healthcare inefficiencies

Frustration over hospital discharge delays and the bottlenecks they create are a familiar experience to patients and staff. Hours are wasted while inpatients wait to leave, staff wait for free beds, and new patients wait for initial evaluation in overcrowded emergency departments (EDs). In addition to causing revenue losses, discharge delays may put patients at risk. Anxiety, depression, physical decline from immobility, and risks of infections, bedsores, and falls all increase the longer the patient stays in the hospital, and clinical studies show higher morbidity and mortality in patients whose discharge is delayed. ED overcrowding can lead to serious adverse events from delayed critical care and medical errors, and some patients may become so frustrated that they choose to leave before being seen.

We’ve all heard the idiom that one should “compare apples to apples; not apples to oranges. But what if you are not calling all of your apples by the name apple, or oranges by the name orange?

Or, here’s another way to think about it: Having mismatched data is like having an unorganized closet—you can’t find anything when you need it, you waste time searching, lose money in new purchases, and the closet gets messier as time goes on.

As president and CEO of the nation’s largest patient safety organization, I had the privilege of leading ECRI through a dangerous time for humanity. Overnight, the insidious COVID-19 virus sent our 500-plus employees home to work remotely, but we never missed a beat. We were resilient; and we focused on searching for answers that would mean the difference between life and death for millions of people infected with SARS-CoV-2.

When the Philadelphia Business Journal honored me as a Healthcare Leader for 2021, I was humbled and grateful, but I knew the award belonged to and was representative of the extraordinary work that ECRI’s employees undertook to provide assurance to our global healthcare constituents and to make patients and healthcare providers safer in a time of crisis.

In recent years, efforts to reduce HAIs have been successful, with annual cases dropping more and more each year. However, in 2020, there was an increase in HAIs, causing healthcare leaders to examine the reasons behind this spike and if the increase was related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the burden it placed on healthcare facilities and staff.

COVID’s Delta variant, a highly contagious, more infectious strain has led to increased transmissibility when compared with other variants and prompted the U.S. to renew the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declaration. Delta has caused an increased number of cases, including breakthrough cases in some vaccinated people, as well as rising hospitalizations, especially in regions with low vaccination rates.

Giving birth is one of the most natural parts of life. But for too many women, giving birth can be dangerous, and lead to infections, illness, and even death. More than 300,000 women worldwide die from childbirth each year; in the U.S. that number is approximately 700 women per year.

Fundamental healthcare equity issue 

ECRI recently participated in World Patient Safety Day: Safe Maternal and Newborn Care, and joined the call for Safe Maternal and Newborn Care, calling it “the most fundamental healthcare issue there is, and indeed, the most fundamental human rights issue.”

During the past year, we were reminded of the critical role that supply chain plays in clinical care and overall operations. While our industry has adapted and grown to weather the COVID crisis, now is no time to return to business as usual. The roller coaster ride has slowed, but not stopped; supply chain still faces tremendous challenges such as product shortages, geo-political implications, increased costs, longer delivery times, worker shortages, lack of transparency, and other inventory challenges. Consider the following:

Healthcare administrators, value analysis, and clinical leaders constantly strive for greater performance, better clinical outcomes, and higher physician engagement. But while the need to nurture and achieve these priorities all at once remains strong, there is an underlying struggle on how to accomplish these distinct, yet interdependent goals.

Andrew Furman, MD, MMM, FACEP, Executive Director, Clinical Excellence at ECRI delved into these challenges as a featured speaker at the member-only 2021 Spring Vanguard Meeting of the American Association for Physician Leadership held on Friday, June 11.