Study examines quality of colonoscopy reporting and performance

Researchers in the Netherlands assessed the quality of colonoscopy reporting in daily clinical practice and evaluated the quality of colonoscopy performance. They found that colonoscopy reporting varied significantly in clinical practice. Colonoscopy performance met the suggested standards, however, considerable variability between endoscopy departments was found. Researchers concluded that the results of the study underline the importance of the implementation of quality indicators and guidelines, and that by continuous monitoring of quality parameters, the quality of both colonoscopy reporting and colonoscopy performance can easily be improved. The study appears in the January issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

Quality assurance in endoscopy has become an important topic in recent decades. The implementation of colorectal cancer screening has driven a significant portion of these quality initiatives in colonoscopy. Suggested quality indicators for colonoscopy include, among others, cecal intubation rate, adenoma detection rate (ADR), and withdrawal time. Without complete and accurate reporting of colonoscopy parameters, continuous quality assurance is meaningless because deficits in service and quality improvements over time cannot be identified. By determining underlying reasons for quality deficits, specific training and education projects can be implemented to achieve the maximum benefit from colonoscopic procedures.

"Studies of quality indicators focus to a great extent on single quality indicators and often show the results of quality assurance in nondaily clinical practice, such as screening programs and study settings, where endoscopists were aware of the quality audit or were obliged to complete automated colonoscopy reporting systems.

Less is known about the compliance with colonoscopy reporting and performance in daily clinical practice," said study lead author Vincent de Jonge, MSc, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "Our study examined both reporting and performance in daily practice. We found that reporting varied significantly in clinical practice and that while performance met the suggested standards, there was considerable variability between endoscopy departments."

Methods

This study took place in the daily clinical practice of 12 endoscopy departments in the Netherlands (six teaching hospitals and six general hospitals). At the time of the study, there was no comprehensive quality assurance program either nationwide or at any of the endoscopy departments individually, although over the past 15 years, the Dutch Society of Gastroenterologists has put in place and maintained a quality audit system for endoscopy units. This system requires that endoscopy units and their staff undergo a thorough quality audit every five years according to a fixed format by trained external auditors from the Dutch Society. The audit focuses on, for example, organizational aspects of the units, case mix, number of endoscopy procedures performed, waiting lists, and complication registration, but not on specific performance indicators of individual endoscopists such as those investigated in this study (i.e., cecal intubation rate and ADR). The staff of each participating endoscopy department was informed about the study protocol and parameters of interest, and ethical approval was obtained from each institutional review board. During the study period, colonoscopies and colonoscopy reporting were performed according to local protocols.