Q: Describe the appropriate amount of time GI physicians should be spending on scope withdrawal and why this is important.
Linda Beaver: A proper withdrawal time of the scope is at least seven minutes. This ensure physicians are spending more time looking for and finding polyps during a colonoscopy, which can lead to cancer if not removed in a timely manner.
Q: How was your endoscopy center’s QI study carried out to ensure the physicians were taking enough time to withdraw scopes during colonoscopies?
LB: I personally did my own literature research and collected articles from multiple studies and various organizations, such as the Mayo Clinic. Most of the references expressed seven minutes as the time for proper scope withdrawal. We decided to measure scope times physician by physician, look at the outliers that were occurring in less than seven minutes and investigate the reason for why the scopes were withdrawn sooner. We used software for our documentation by running reports of all the scope withdrawal times, putting the data in an Excel spreadsheet and sorting it in that report. We’ve been monitoring withdrawal times in this manner since January of this year, and we continue to monitor it even after our QI study was over.
Q: What were your findings?
LB: Most of our physicians have an average withdrawal time of 12 minutes, so our endoscopy center is doing well in withdrawal times. There are still occasionally some short withdrawal times, but so far those cases have all had legitimate reasons, such as obstructing masses or poor bowel prep.
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