The Clinical Pathways Program aims to improve the quality of care provided to patients at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. The Program incorporates evidence-based recommendations and expert consensus into streamlined clinical tools that outline the recommended course of treatment for various conditions, helping assure that our patients get the care they need and need the care they get. The Quality and Safety Department tracks metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the following clinical pathways in improving the overall quality of care.
See AgileMD ED Pathways in EPIC, including: Asthma, bronchiolitis, croup and many others:
Pathways in old format:
See AgileMD Inpatient Pathways in EPIC, including: Asthma, bronchiolitis, croup and many others:
Pathways in old format:
The clinical pathways built in AgileMD integrate directly into the electronic medical record, which improves accessibility and allows providers to place orders from the pathways. The use of pop-up windows helps streamline the pathways while also providing further educational information. The Clinical Pathways Program appreciates your feedback - please contact us via email with any concerns or recommendations at [email protected].
Each clinical pathway has primary authors who incorporate current evidence-based recommendations and research into clinical pathway development. Key stakeholders subsequently provide expert review of the clinical pathways and participate in developing consensus agreement and approval for all care recommendations. For example, our asthma clinical pathway includes input from a multidisciplinary team including pulmonary medicine, hospital medicine, emergency medicine, nursing staff, respiratory therapy and pharmacy. Stakeholders also participate in developing key metrics that track the effectiveness of care provided for children at our hospital.
Learn more about our process for clinical pathway development
These clinical pathways are intended to be general guides for clinicians, and it is essential to note that not all patients will fit neatly onto a given clinical pathway. For example, some patients may be excluded from pathway application, while others may not follow the expected course of disease and require an alternative care plan. In general, the clinical pathways should apply to approximately 75% of patients with the listed condition.
It is equally essential that clinicians maintain an open, broad differential diagnosis when applying these pathways to their patients. Clinicians should avoid anchoring onto a given diagnosis and continue to assess patients for alternative diagnoses while applying clinical pathway recommendations. For example, placing a patient on the bronchiolitis clinical pathway does not preclude the patient from having bacterial pneumonia or underlying cardiac dysfunction. Clinicians must remain diagnostically flexible when applying pathways, always incorporating new information and using their best clinical judgement to determine the utility of a pathway on a case-by-case basis.
