GIQuIC expands endoscopic quality registry to include upper GI endoscopy

The GI Quality Improvement Consortium (GIQuIC) announces the expansion of its endoscopic quality registry to include upper GI endoscopy and related quality measures. GIQuIC, a quality benchmarking registry co-sponsored by the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, provides reliable and relevant measures of endoscopic quality that give physicians meaningful information they can use to improve patient care.

With the addition of upper GI endoscopy (EGD), the GIQuIC registry now includes the second most common endoscopic procedure in the United States. GIQuIC responded to the desire of endoscopists to expand their ability to track performance and benchmark quality to meet the demand for more detailed data on patient outcomes.

Colonoscopy was the first procedure captured and tracked within GIQuIC and new data fields within colonoscopy have also been added, including serrated lesions, sedation type and patient insurance.

More than 1,300 physicians contribute data to the registry from more than 150 endoscopy centers. Currently, the registry includes data on more than 330,000 colonoscopies. Since October 2012, the data has tripled and continues to grow exponentially as more gastroenterology practices adopt GIQuIC in their endoscopy facilities as a mechanism to improve the overall quality of care provided to patients and to meet government guidelines regarding participation in a registry.

"GIQuIC is a business solution for efficiently managing data, streamlining operations and truly transforming gastroenterology practice," commented GIQuIC President Dr. Irving M. Pike. "Practices currently participating in GIQuIC are using it as a way to market their services to patients, demonstrating to patients their commitment to quality care as well as how they rate per national benchmarks," he added.

The addition of EGDs results in the following new quality measures as part of the registry:

-Appropriate specimen acquisition in Barrett's esophagus
-Appropriate management of new diagnoses of bleeding esophageal varices
-Appropriate endoscopic therapy for stigmata of peptic ulcer disease bleeding
-Appropriate anticoagulation management
-Appropriate antibiotic prophylaxis
-H. pylori status