What is a Clinical Pathway?

A clinical pathway is a structured, evidence-based, multidisciplinary plan that details steps in the care of patients with a specific condition. The goal of a clinical pathway is to standardize best practice, improve patient outcomes and reduce cost. This is accomplished by decreasing unnecessary variation while promoting safe, effective, and consistent patient care.
 

Our Program

The Clinical Pathways Program at Connecticut Children’s aims to improve the quality of care our patients receive, across both ambulatory and acute care settings. We have implemented a standardized process for clinical pathway development and maintenance to ensure meaningful improvements to patient care as well as systematic continual improvement.

Development of a clinical pathway includes a multidisciplinary team, which may include doctors, advanced practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, other specialists, and even patients/families. Each clinical pathway has a flow algorithm, an educational module for end-user education, associated order set(s) in the electronic medical record, and quality metrics that are evaluated regularly to measure the pathway’s effectiveness. Additionally, clinical pathways are reviewed annually and updated to ensure alignment with the most up to date evidence.

CLINICAL PATHWAYS TEAM

Ilana Waynik, MD
Director, Clinical Effectiveness Program

Mary Saccoccio, BSN, RN
Director of Metrics and Measurement

Grace Hong, APRN
Senior Development Specialist, Clinical Effectiveness Program

Jill Herring, APRN
Order Set Specialist

Eric Hoppa, MD
Emergency Department Lead

Shirley Bonazelli, BSN, RN
Clinical Data Coordinator

Tina Sacco, BS, RN
Clinical Data Coordinator

Tracy Daley, MSN, RN
Clinical Data Coordinator

Mellissa Molcan BSN, RN, CCRN
Clinical Data Coordinator

Jenny Rickles, MPH
Quality Metrics Specialist

Stephanie Komkov, PhD
Senior Systems Analyst

Disclaimer

The clinical pathways in the above links have been developed specifically for use at Connecticut Children’s and are made available publicly for informational and/or educational purposes only. The clinical pathways are not intended to be, nor are they, a substitute for individualized professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Although Connecticut Children’s makes all efforts to ensure the accuracy of the posted content, Connecticut Children’s makes no warranty of any kind as to the accuracy or completeness of the information or its fitness for use at any particular facility or in any individual case.