Understanding Variability in Success of Quality Improvement for Colonoscopy

Over 14 million colonoscopies are performed annually in the U.S. About 25% of patients that undergo colonoscopy have inadequate bowel preparation, an impediment to identifying cancer and pre-cancerous growths. The adenoma miss rate for patients with inadequate bowel preparation can be as high as 48%. The primary goal of the Strategies to Improve Colonoscopy (STIC) study is to conduct formative research on a multi-component implementation strategy to increase staff adoption of evidence-based practices (i.e. split-dosing of the medication, low-literacy materials, teach-back) for educating patients and improving the adequacy of bowel preparation for colonoscopy.

Investigators will compare the effect of physician education about evidence based practices for colonoscopy alone, versus education plus a staff implementation toolkit to improve quality of colonoscopy (i.e. adequacy of bowel preparation). Physicians in both study groups will receive education on the evidence-based practices. Staff who work for physicians in the initial intervention group will receive a multi-component implementation strategy for the evidence-based practices, consisting of staff education, a supply of low-literacy patient education materials for split-dosing the medication of their choice, poster and pocket-card with teach-back prompts, a consultation to integrate materials and teach-back into workflow, and a website with additional training and patient materials. The initial intervention period will be followed by a replication study where the delayed intervention group will receive the intervention.

Investigators will compare change in colonoscopy quality outcomes from before to after implementation of interventions for the two study groups: a) overall; and for b) Medicaid versus other insurance using administrative and medical record data with interrupted time series analysis. Investigators will also examine factors that influence adoption of the evidence based practices using structured physician, staff and patient surveys.