Global Tracheostomy Collaborative

The Global Tracheostomy Collaborative (GTC) is an international, multidisciplinary quality improvement organization dedicated to improving care, safety, and quality of life for individuals with tracheostomies. It brings together hospitals, healthcare professionals, people with a tracheostomy, their families, and caregivers to share best practices, implement evidence-based care protocols, and use data to drive improvements worldwide. Through resources such as webinars, educational materials, toolkits, an international tracheostomy symposium (ITS), and a global database for benchmarking outcomes, GTC promotes standardization of care, multidisciplinary collaboration, and patient/family engagement to reduce complications and enhance clinical outcomes for people with a tracheostomy.

The Global Tracheostomy Collaborative has created a community where a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, patients and families are empowered to learn and continuously improve the outcomes of patients with tracheostomies. Over 100,000 people in the U.S. alone receive tracheostomies every year. Of this number 20% do not survive, not necessarily as a result of the procedure, but from the critical illness or condition that prompted the procedure. However, complications and adverse events around tracheostomies are reported in 10-20% of cases. Few of these events happen in the operating room; more often they occur during the postoperative period while the patient is still in the hospital or recovering at home. Some complications are catastrophic, since if a tracheostomy comes out or is blocked the patient cannot breathe and can die quickly.

The concept of a “Quality Improvement Collaborative” came from a white paper published by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement in 2003 describing a method devised to generate ‘breakthrough’ improvement in care by bringing together a diverse team from a hospital or organization to work together in a focused topic area. Elements of the strategy included assembling teams from different organizations or specialties and a focus on an urgent need to improve a single aspect of care that was shared by all participants. The end result is for the team to agree on best practices, to change their methods, track their results and share the outcomes of their collaboration. The movement is now widespread in the health care sector and over 120 papers have been published.

5 GTC Best Practices

1. TEAM BASED
2. CARE STANDARD PROTOCOLS
3. STAFF EDUCATION AND ASSIGNMENT  
4. CAREGIVER INVOLVEMENT
5. DATA COLLECTION

Our Mission

To partner with hospitals, healthcare professionals and patients and families around the world to improve the care, safety and quality of life for everyone with a tracheostomy.

Our Vision

Safe, effective tracheostomy care on a global scale, achieved through data-driven innovations of interprofessional teams of physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, speech therapists, patients, and families.

Key Drivers

Leaders on the GTC steering committee and at other hospitals around the world have shown that it is possible to bring about truly transformative change in the quality of care for patients with tracheostomies.

While every institution’s approach has been unique, several ‘key drivers’ have been found to be critical to bringing about major improvements in trach care:

• Multi-disciplinary care. An institution-level multidisciplinary trach committee, and a multidisciplinary ‘trach team’ that meets regularly, discusses patients together, and rounds on patients together.
• Standardization of care. Agreeing that within your particular institution, trach care will follow a planned protocol or care pathway unless there is a medical reason to deviate from this pathway.
• Broad staff education. Ensuring that every doctor, nurse and ancillary provider is well trained in trach care and in managing trach emergencies.
• Patient and family involvement. Involving patients/families in improvement efforts and regularly getting feedback from patients and families.
• Entering data; tracking your performance; bench-marking with other institutions.

History

The Global Tracheostomy Collaborative was formed by Dr. David Roberson, an ENT specialist at Harvard, following work by many researchers demonstrating that tracheostomy and laryngectomy patients are at high risk for preventable adverse events – often with tragic outcomes.

Dr. Roberson invited specialists from multiple disciplines from around the world to a foundational meeting in Glasgow, Scotland in July 2012. This group’s support and enthusiasm led to the founding of the GTC.

Subsequently, the Steering Committee met again in London, UK in April 2013 to finalize plans for the collaborative.
The GTC held kickoff meetings and began enrolling hospitals in the USA in Boston in April 2014, in the UK in London in July 2014, and in Australasia in Melbourne in October 2014. Approximately 40 hospitals from around the world have joined the collaborative.

The Collaborative was approved as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the United States of America in June 2014.

Dedication

This collaborative and our work is dedicated to our patients and their families, past, present and future.

Together, we can make a difference!