Physician Resources

Developed by gastroenterologists for gastroenterologists and a joint collaboration of the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), GIQuIC has its own Board of Directors comprised of physician leaders to guide and direct the registry.

Screening Colonoscopy Updates: What They Mean For Your Practice

For our September QuIC Bite webinar and to celebrate Women in Medicine Month, the GIQuIC team was pleased to feature Drs. Aasma Shaukat, Audrey Calderwood, and Carol Burke, leaders in the field of GI, to discuss recent updates to screening colonoscopy. They presented cases that covered lowering the recommended screening age, colonoscopy post a positive FOBT, FIT/DNA test, and adjusting recommended follow-up intervals in accordance with updated recommendations.

You can watch the video below and download the slides by clicking here.

GIQuIC Monthly Newsletters and QuIC Bite Webinars

GIQuIC conducts monthly QuIC Bite webinars to enhance our participants’ knowledge and understanding of the registry. In addition, we produce a monthly newsletter to keep users informed about enhancements and upcoming events. To ensure you receive GIQuIC communications, please provide your email address to Anna Chareon at achareon@gi.org.

Physician Handout

The GIQuIC team has developed a resource for physicians that includes links to several videos and webinars, including:

  • GIQuIC Registry Overview video
  • Assessing and Improving Quality in Barrett’s Esophagus and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma (Proper Sampling for Barrett’s Esophagus)* – Dr. Sachin Wani discusses the research he conducted based on GIQuIC data that found endoscopists tend to under-sample patients with long-segment Barrett’s esophagus
  • Translating Updated USMSTF Recommendations into Practice* – Dr. Aasma Shaukat provides guidance to educate practices regarding the updated guidelines for colonoscopy that were published in February of 2020, and the GIQuIC team explained how they were incorporated into GIQuIC
  • Making the Grade* webinar and slides – Brett Bernstein, MD, MBA, and Helen Lowenwirth, MBA, CASC, from Eastside Endoscopy in New York City illustrate how to utilize GIQuIC measure reports to provide report cards to physicians to assess and improve performance
  • Properly Populating Pathology* webinar and slides – The GIQuIC team demonstrates how to thoroughly and accurately record pathology results to ensure accurate data is being uploaded to the registry

There are also links to several resources for physicians to refer to, including:

To request a copy of the Physician Handout, including QuIC Tips for Physicians regarding documenting procedures (below), please email tbasham@gi.org.

* Denotes a resource that is only available to current GIQuIC participants on the homepage of the registry. For more information about joining GIQuIC, please click here.

QuIC Tips for Physicians

We have listed some tips below to help you document procedures in your endoscopic report writer (endowriter). You may notice a few extra clicks along the way, but they will help provide the data that is required by GIQuIC to calculate the quality measures. 

• Please familiarize yourself with the Colonoscopy Data Collection Form and the EGD Data Collection Form to understand which fields are required by GIQuIC.
• Be sure to make selections using drop-down menus whenever possible instead of free texting to ensure data is being accurately mapped from the EHR/endowriter to GIQuIC.
• If a data element is required by GIQuIC and is not documented, the procedure cannot be submitted to the registry; therefore the physician or Data Manager will have to go back to enter that missing required field in the endowriter in order to upload the procedure to GIQuIC.
• Your EHR/endowriter will interpret bowel prep according to the rating method you use. For example, a rating of Excellent or Good will be mapped to GIQuIC as Adequate and a rating of Fair or Poor will be mapped to GIQuIC as Inadequate. If you use the Boston Bowel Prep Scale, applicable mapping will be made based on the rating you assign.
• Distinguishing between screening, surveillance, and diagnostic exams is important because certain measures are limited to one or two of the categories. For example, adenoma detection rate is only calculated for screening exams. 
• The list of procedure indications is based on ASGE’s Appropriate Use of GI Endoscopy Guidelines document. This list does not include non-specific indications such as abdominal pain, constipation, and change in bowel habits. These indications that are not listed in the Appropriate Use of GI Endoscopy Guidelines will map to the “Other” option in the GIQuIC registry. 
• Photodocumentation of cecal landmarks are critical data fields and play a role in several quality measures. At least one cecal landmark must be photographed for a procedure to be considered complete, and at least two cecal landmarks must be photographed in order to meet the criteria for the quality measure for the Quality Payment Program (also known as MIPS).
• If High Risk is selected for Colorectal Neoplasm Risk Assessment, you must select a corresponding reason (e.g. personal history of adenomatous polyps, family history of CRC in one first-degree relative diagnosed before age 60, etc.)
• The number of polyps removed and retrieved are critical for calculating the follow-up measures in GIQuIC and it is important that they be thoroughly documented. If fewer polyps are retrieved than removed, GIQuIC will flag this procedure with a warning since it is a relatively rare scenario. 
• You can document whether chromoendoscopy is used for any procedure but this documentation is required for procedures with an indication related to IBD. 
• IBD biopsy protocol documentation is limited to procedures with an IBD indication. 
• Pathology results and the final follow-up interval told to the patient based on those results are the only data fields that may need to be manually filled out by the physician or the Data Manager. (The rest of the information collected by GIQuIC should be mapped to GIQuIC from the EHR/endowriter.) These fields should be filled out after the procedure is performed and before it is submitted to GIQuIC. These fields are critically important and should be documented completely and accurately. The GIQuIC team hosted a webinar titled Properly Populating Pathology that addressed this and it is available on the homepage of the registry or as a link with the Physician Handout. Anything that doesn’t fit into the available options (for example, “microscopic colitis”) should be recorded under “Other.” This includes normal biopsy findings. 
• “Other” should be a relatively rare selection for the recommended follow-up interval and will result in a warning message when the procedure is submitted to the registry. This warning guides the Data Manager to ensure the follow-up interval is indeed outside of the drop-down selections.  
• Adverse Events refer to immediate events that occur during the procedure or while the patient is still at the facility. 
• Your Data Manager should be running measure reports regularly and sharing them with you so you can make quality improvements. If you have any questions about the registry, your data, or measure reports, we invite you to schedule a call with the GIQuIC team to discuss the reports in more detail. The Data Manager who has access to the registry can open a service ticket to request a call by clicking on Service Desk in the upper right-hand corner of the registry. If you need further assistance, please email tbasham@gi.org.