Quality/Patient Safety Goal:
Improvement in CRAFFT Screening
Goal & Summary
We are committed to effective, evidence-based care at Akron Children’s Hospital while providing a patient- and family-centered approach. We recognized a key improvement opportunity and implemented an evidence-based substance-abuse screening process that is completed during well-child visits for children ages 12 years and older.
Why is this important?
An alarming rate of substance abuse is occurring within our communities, and the evidence suggests that early screening and detection of substance use and abuse allows for earlier treatment interventions to reduce long-term substance abuse risk. The CRAFFT screen explores an adolescent’s substance use and abuse (alcohol or drugs) with questions about riding in a car with someone who was under the influence, use of substance to relax while alone, forgetting things due to substance use, family/friends recognizing the need to reduce substance use, or trouble associated with substance use.
What are we doing to improve?
We developed an improvement team involving pediatricians and physician informaticists who used quality improvement methodologies, clinical decision support tools within the electronic health record and timely feedback from our providers and medical practices to improve our screening process for substance use and abuse.
What progress have we made?
Who are we partnering with to share best practices?
The improvement leaders presented portions of their work at meetings of the Akron Children’s Hospital Clinical Effectiveness steering committee and have submitted a manuscript that is under review.
