Patient Safety & Quality Improvement USMLE Step 1 Practice Question
A hospital measures the time from emergency department arrival to percutaneous coronary intervention for ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients. The target is a door-to-balloon time of less than 90 minutes. Over the past 6 months, the median door-to-balloon time is 110 minutes. A quality improvement team identifies that the main delay occurs during the 40-minute average time between ED physician ECG interpretation and cardiology team activation. Which of the following is the most effective intervention?
Answer choices
- AAllow ED physicians to activate the cardiac catheterization lab directly without cardiology consultationCorrect answer
- BAdd an additional cardiology fellow to the on-call schedule
- CReduce the ECG interpretation time by purchasing faster ECG machines
- DRequire all STEMI patients to be seen by a cardiologist before catheterization lab activation
- EImplement a quality dashboard displaying door-to-balloon times in the ED
- FEstablish a protocol requiring cardiology telephone consultation with the ED physician before catheterization lab activation
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