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Evidence to Excellence

Launched in 2007, Evidence to Excellence is a non-profit community of practice (a network of health professionals) with over 220 members that promotes best practices in emergency care.

While research suggests it can take several years for the knowledge gained through academic research to be translated into improvements in patient care – E2E aims to accelerate improvements in clinical and operational practices so that patients are always receiving the best possible care.

Funded by the Ministry of Health Services and led by Chair, Dr. Julian Marsden of Providence Health Care together with the UBC eHealth Strategy Office, E2E’s activities are driven by three main objectives:

  1. Knowledge translation – to lead and support clinicians in finding and applying evidence to clinical practice in emergency medicine.
  2. Process improvement – to advocate for system change to improve the processes of clinical practice.
  3. Academic activity – to develop the knowledge base for the science and practice of knowledge translation and process improvement.

E2E’s interactive website links health professionals with a number of resources, including journals and publications, quality improvement toolkits and provincial guidelines. Perhaps more importantly, the website links health professionals with each other. Through the online discussion forums, participants can collaborate with other emergency communities online – sharing knowledge and successes, and providing guidance to others in resolving the issues faced in emergency care in BC, Canada and around the world. E2E was also recently showcased by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia in its monthly newsletter.

E2E plays an important role in keeping health professionals up to date with the latest in clinical and operational evidence, delivering information through live events, webcasts, podcasts, and video conferencing. In 2008, topics ranged from facial trauma and limb-threatening emergencies to rashes that must not be overlooked in the emergency room.

E2E not only promotes best practices, it also aims to improve processes in emergency care by launching quality improvement “collaboratives” – defined by E2E as structured, time-limited projects where teams work together to put specific ideas into action.

In May 2008, Evidence to Excellence launched its first two collaboratives, which target improvements in the Emergency Department triage process and in the clinical management of sepsis – a systemic infection that kills tens of thousands of Canadians each year. Support for both initiatives has been widespread, with approximately 33 teams from 26 emergency department sites around BC participating.

Initial results are promising. At St. Paul’s Hospital, the Sepsis Protocol utilized a multidisciplinary team from the Emergency Department (ED) and Intensive Care Unit that outlined practices that improved patient care and reduced deaths from sepsis by nearly 50 percent.

Teams working on triage are working to reduce the time it takes to see a physician and reducing the number of patients who leave the ED without being seen. One site, working to reduce the time it takes BC Ambulance to pass care of a patient over to the hospital (thereby freeing them up to respond to other calls), has seen a four-fold reduction in time on average.

For more information about E2E, or to join for free, please visit www.evidence2excellence.ca

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