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Changing an ingrained culture: Improving the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust.

ABSTRACT: Oxygen is one of the most commonly administered drugs in UK hospitals. Our quality improvement project aimed to increase the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust. We aimed to increase the rate of oxygen prescribing and increase the percentage of nurses signing appropriately for oxygen titration and administration. We hypothesised this would result in a higher percentage of patients achieving their appropriate oxygen saturations. Our project ran on several acute medical and surgical wards. We tested several interventions with a plan, do, study, act method of continuous data collection. We firstly focussed on the education of junior doctors and then the wider multi-disciplinary team with a trust-wide "safety focus". We utilised patient safety systems already in place in the hospital, such as the clinical risk register and incident reporting system. We also trialled an intervention that was successfully implemented by another group in a different trust in the UK. Oxygen prescription increased from 44.4% to 76.9% over the duration of the project. Appropriate nursing signatures increased from 26.6% to 60%. The number of patients achieving appropriate target saturations rose from 61.8% to 76.7%. The most successful interventions were the trust safety briefing and oxygen safety hangers. Our project has showed the importance of integrating new projects within safety schemes already available. Persistence and careful intervention are key to changing strongly engrained cultures in large organisations. Interventions that have proved to be successful in other trusts can be implemented to enact change.

SUBMITTER: Gatter M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4693053 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Changing an ingrained culture: Improving the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust.

Gatter Michelle M Dixon Giles G Wall Josh J Mew Ed E

BMJ quality improvement reports 20150724 1

Oxygen is one of the most commonly administered drugs in UK hospitals. Our quality improvement project aimed to increase the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust. We aimed to increase the rate of oxygen prescribing and increase the percentage of nurses signing appropriately for oxygen titration and administration. We hypothesised this would result in a higher percentage of patients achieving their appropriate oxygen saturations. Our project ran on several ...[more]

PMID: 26732123

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Project description:Medicines reconciliation is integral to patient safety, symptom control and reducing patient anxiety. During a 3-month period on the respiratory ward at St. Peter's Hospital, 54% of drug charts were not reconciled with pre-admission medicines at the point of discharge for admissions up to 17 days. Only 18% were reconciled within 24 hours of admission. 50% of drug charts were missing 0-2 pre-admission medicines and 50% were missing 3-5 pre-admission medicines. The most common medicines that were not reconciled included topical applications which included eye, ear, nasal and skin applications (14%); vitamins i.e. vitamin B12 and thiamine, analgesia, PRN inhalers (11% individually); antidepressants and lipid regulators (6% individually); amongst a range of other medications including antiplatelets, calcium channel blockers, ACE inhibitors and diuretics. Two interventions were carried out to improve the rate of medicines reconciliation onto hospital drug charts with pre-admission medicines. These were: 1) a green sticker placed in the medical notes by the pharmacist when drug charts were incomplete, which required a date and signature from the doctor when the drug chart had been reconciled 2) the placing of the loose medicines reconciliation record (a list of pre-admission medicines retrieved from a reliable source usually by the pharmacist) to the front of the drug chart. These measures were designed to alert the doctors that the drug chart was incomplete. After 2 PDSA cycles, the results showed positive outcomes. In 75% of the cases where the interventions were used, medicines reconciliation was complete at the point of discharge with 34% of drug charts reconciled within 24 hours of admission. Of the 25% of drug charts that were not reconciled despite the use of the interventions, 100% of them were missing 0-2 medicines however 0% were missing 3-5 medicines. This highlights that the interventions were effective in improving the rates of medicines reconciliation.

Project description:BackgroundWe aimed to measure SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in a cohort of healthcare workers (HCWs) during the first UK wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, explore risk factors associated with infection, and investigate the impact of antibody titres on assay sensitivity.MethodsHCWs at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (STH) were prospectively enrolled and sampled at two time points. SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were tested using an in-house assay for IgG and IgA reactivity against Spike and Nucleoprotein (sensitivity 99·47%, specificity 99·56%). Data were analysed using three statistical models: a seroprevalence model, an antibody kinetics model, and a heterogeneous sensitivity model.FindingsAs of 12th June 2020, 24·4% (n=311/1275) HCWs were seropositive. Of these, 39·2% (n=122/311) were asymptomatic. The highest adjusted seroprevalence was measured in HCWs on the Acute Medical Unit (41·1%, 95% CrI 30·0-52·9) and in Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists (39·2%, 95% CrI 24·4-56·5). Older age groups showed overall higher median antibody titres. Further modelling suggests that, for a serological assay with an overall sensitivity of 80%, antibody titres may be markedly affected by differences in age, with sensitivity estimates of 89% in those over 60 years but 61% in those ≤30 years.InterpretationHCWs in acute medical units working closely with COVID-19 patients were at highest risk of infection, though whether these are infections acquired from patients or other staff is unknown. Current serological assays may underestimate seroprevalence in younger age groups if validated using sera from older and/or more symptomatic individuals.Research in contextEvidence before this study: We searched PubMed for studies published up to March 6th 2021, using the terms "COVID", "SARS-CoV-2", "seroprevalence", and "healthcare workers", and in addition for articles of antibody titres in different age groups against coronaviruses using "coronavirus", "SARS-CoV-2, "antibody", "antibody tires", "COVID\" and "age". We included studies that used serology to estimate prevalence in healthcare workers. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence has been shown to be greater in healthcare workers working on acute medical units or within domestic services. Antibody levels against seasonal coronaviruses, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 were found to be higher in older adults, and patients who were hospitalised.Added value of this study: In this healthcare worker seroprevalence modelling study at a large NHS foundation trust, we confirm that those working on acute medical units, COVID-19 "Red Zones" and within domestic services are most likely to be seropositive. Furthermore, we show that physiotherapists and occupational therapists have an increased risk of COVID-19 infection. We also confirm that antibody titres are greater in older individuals, even in the context of non-hospitalised cases. Importantly, we demonstrate that this can result in age-specific sensitivity in serological assays, where lower antibody titres in younger individuals results in lower assay sensitivity.Implications of all the available evidence: There are distinct occupational roles and locations in hospitals where the risk of COVID-19 infection to healthcare workers is greatest, and this knowledge should be used to prioritise infection prevention control and other measures to protect healthcare workers. Serological assays may have different sensitivity profiles across different age groups, especially if assay validation was undertaken using samples from older and/or hospitalised patients, who tend to have higher antibody titres. Future seroprevalence studies should consider adjusting for age-specific assay sensitivities to estimate true seroprevalence rates.Author contributions

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Changing an ingrained culture: Improving the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust.

Publications

Changing an ingrained culture: Improving the safety of oxygen therapy at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust.

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