Rapid Improvement Project: Improving Caregivers' Understanding of Safety Recommendations for Neurosurgical Devices.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Methods
We performed a search for monopolar electrocautery and magnetic resonance imaging safety recommendations for several indwelling neuromodulatory devices. We developed a questionnaire followed by an educational compendium and a posttest for 50 care providers.Results
Overall, there was a poor performance on the pretest (mean 39%, SD 19%) but significant improvement on the posttest (mean 71%, SD 16%), P < 0.0001. We placed the educational compendium that included all manufacturer recommendations in the operating room for easy reference. A 2.4 times decrease in the case start times of vagus nerve stimulator cases is evidence of its effectiveness.Conclusions
The authors highlight the lack of knowledge about manufacturer safety recommendations for indwelling neurosurgical devices, which led to the creation of operating room supplements and educational devices.
SUBMITTER: Anokwute MC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7781352 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan-Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Rapid Improvement Project: Improving Caregivers' Understanding of Safety Recommendations for Neurosurgical Devices.
Anokwute Miracle C MC Seibold Dianne D Jea Andrew A Ackerman Laurie L LL Raskin Jeffrey S JS
Pediatric quality & safety 20201228 1
There has been a proliferation in the development of indwelling neuromodulatory devices with varied safety recommendations, making it difficult for providers to remain up-to-date. This deficit presents an opportunity for significant improvement in patient safety.<h4>Methods</h4>We performed a search for monopolar electrocautery and magnetic resonance imaging safety recommendations for several indwelling neuromodulatory devices. We developed a questionnaire followed by an educational compendium a ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:To design a hospital-standardised phlebotomy handover method to improve the communication between phlebotomists and doctors. To reduce delays in patient management and discharges which occur due to poor handover. Qualitative data was collected to gauge junior doctors' experiences of the current handover process. Quantitative data was collected over a two-week period across two medical wards to measure the proportion of requested bloods that could not be taken by phlebotomists that were successfully handed over to doctors. Brainstorming sessions were held with junior doctors, phlebotomists and ward staff in order to design a, cheap, effective, sustainable, hospital-wide method of handover. The chosen intervention was a red ward-based phlebotomy handover folder for phlebotomists to place stickers of unbled patients in. The folder was trialled on two medical wards. Feedback obtained helped improve the intervention before implementing it hospital-wide. Seventeen of 23 junior doctors (74%) felt that a formalised handover process would be very useful. Baseline measurement over two weeks revealed that 24/129 blood tests ordered for phlebotomists to take were not taken. Only three (13%) of these were handed over to doctors. Post-intervention, 18/106 blood tests requested were not taken. All 18 (100%) were successfully handed over to doctors. Implementation of a hospital-standardised phlebotomy handover folder dramatically improved the communication and handover between phlebotomists and doctors allowing for medical teams to take prompt action on unbled patients. This intervention will help improve patient safety, reduce delays in management/discharge and reduce the number of jobs handed over to evening on-call teams.
| S-EPMC4645808 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Blood tests are a seemingly basic investigation, but are often a vital part of directing patient management. Despite the importance of this everyday process, we indentified the potential for improvement of the current phlebotomy service in our hospital, as both junior doctors and phlebotomists reported a lack of communication and standardised practice across the wards. Resulting delays in obtaining blood test results can impact detrimentally on patient safety and management. We designed a survey which highlighted inefficient handovers and discrepancies between wards as driving factors behind this. We therefore aimed to improve communication between phlebotomists and doctors, as well as the overall organisation of the service. This took the form of the "Phlebotomy Box," a box file system offering a set location for blood stickers to be situated. The box concept was optimised on a series of medical and surgical wards, incorporating multidisciplinary feedback from relevant teams. We measured how many untaken bloods were handed over to medical staff continuously, both pre- and post implementation of the phlebotomy box. Our baseline ward demonstrated poor handover rates of untaken bloods, ranging from 0% to 40%. This increased to a consistent 100% following introduction of the Phlebotomy Box and ongoing staff education. Once optimised, the box was trialled on a further two medical wards and one surgical ward, achieving 100% handover from an initial 0% to 67%. Quantitative improvement was also reflected qualitatively in widespread staff surveys, with overwhelmingly positive support and acceptance. In summary, the Phlebotomy Box innovation has led to 100% of untaken bloods being effectively handed over. We have demonstrated a significant improvement in communication and efficiency within the phlebotomy service, with tangible benefits to patient care, as minimising time lags can prevent delays in clinical decisions. The phlebotomy box represents a simplistic, sustainable intervention that could be easily replicated in other Trusts.
| S-EPMC5015820 | biostudies-other
Project description:In recent years medical handover has been identified as an increasingly important area for hospitals to improve upon, in light of the changes in shift patterns for doctors. Significant changes to weekday handover had recently been successfully introduced at Broomfield hospital. Weekend handover remained a concern, with an electronic and paper system being used simultaneously. Our objectives were to introduce a new electronic handover system for weekend handover at Broomfield Hospital and improve the organisation of the weekend handover meeting to promote patient safety. Doctors involved in weekend handover were surveyed using a questionnaire, to establish insufficiencies in the weekend handover process; where both the electronic ExtraMed system and paper were being used inconsistently. A new weekend handover system was introduced together with a new user-friendly electronic handover database, addressing the identified difficulties in the current system. These changes met the medical handover guidelines set by the Royal College of Physicians. Three months after the launch of the new system, doctors were re-surveyed using a modified questionnaire to assess the impact our changes had made. Before changes were implemented only 12% of doctors surveyed used the electronic system for weekend. Eighty-nine percent found sorting through jobs time consuming and 67% were handed jobs to them meant for a different grade of doctor. Only 41% were aware who to hand weekend discharges to. Subjective assessment of safety was 3.18 out of 5. The electronic system was felt to be time consuming and complicated. After execution of the new weekend handover process, 100% of doctors reported using the electronic system for weekend handover. Only 47% of doctors felt sorting through jobs was time consuming and 89% of doctors were aware who to handover weekend discharges to. Subjective assessment of the safety of weekend handover improved to 3.84 out of 5. Informal interviews on the ward revealed a high degree of satisfaction with the new weekend handover system. In conclusion we found that a structured, well organised weekend handover meeting together with an effective electronic handover system improves the quality of medical weekend handover.
| S-EPMC4693034 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC2249678 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND:Despite making great strides in improving the treatment of diseases, the minimization of unintended harm by medication therapy continues to be a major hurdle facing the health care system. Medication error and prescription of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) represent a prevalent source of harm to patients and are associated with increased rates of adverse events, hospitalizations, and increased health care costs. Attempts to improve medication management systems in primary care have had mixed results. Implementation of new interventions is difficult because of complex contextual factors within the health care system. Abstraction hierarchy (AH), the first step in cognitive work analysis (CWA), is used by human factors practitioners to describe complex sociotechnical systems. Although initially intended for the nuclear power domain and interface design, AH has been used successfully to aid the redesign of numerous health care systems such as the design of decision support tools, mobile patient monitoring apps, and a telephone triage system. OBJECTIVE:This paper aims to refine our understanding of the primary care office in relation to a patient's medication through the development of an AH. Emphasis was placed on the elements related to medication safety to provide guidance for the design of a safer medication management system in primary care. METHODS:The AH development was guided by the methodology used by seminal CWA literature. It was initially developed by 2 authors and later fine-tuned by an expert panel of clinicians, social scientists, and a human factors engineer. It was subsequently refined until an agreement was reached. A means-ends analysis was performed and described for the nodes of interest. The model represents the primary care office space through functional purposes, values and priorities, function-related purposes, object-related processes, and physical objects. RESULTS:This model depicts the medication management system at various levels of abstraction. The resulting components must be balanced and coordinated to provide medical treatment with limited health care resources. Understanding the physical and informational constraints on activities that occur in a primary care office depicted in the AH defines areas in which medication safety can be improved. CONCLUSIONS:Numerous means-ends relationships were identified and analyzed. These can be further evaluated depending on the specific needs of the user. Recommendations for optimizing a medication management system in a primary care facility were made. Individual practices can use AH for clinical redesign to improve prescribing and deprescribing practices.
| S-EPMC7453327 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is more prevalent in patients with hypertension (HTN), and associated morbidities include stroke, heart failure and premature death. In the Internal Medicine Clinic (IMC), over 70% of the patients had a diagnosis of HTN and obesity. We identified a lack of OSA screening in patients with HTN. The aim of this quality improvement (QI) was to increase OSA diagnosis to 5% from the baseline rate of less than 1% in patients with HTN between the ages of 18 and 75 years over 6 months at IMC. We used the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) method. The QI team performed root cause analysis to identify materials/methods, provider and patient-related barriers. PDSA cycle included: (1) integration of customised workflow of loud Snoring, Tiredness, Observed apnea, high blood Pressure (STOP)-Body mass index (BMI), Age, Neck circumference, and Gender (BANG) OSA screening tool in the electronic health record (EHR); (2) physician education of OSA and EHR workflow; and (3) completion of STOP survey by patients, which was facilitated by nursing staff. The outcome measure was the percentage of OSA diagnosis in patients with HTN. The process measures included the percentage of patients with HTN screened for OSA and the increase in sleep study referrals in hypertensive patients with STOP-BANG score of ?3. Increase in patient wait time and cost of sleep study were the balance measures. Data analysis was performed using weekly statistical process control chart. The average increase in OSA screening rate using the STOP-BANG tool was 3.88%. The significant variation seen in relation to PDSA cycles was not sustainable. 32% of patients scored ?3 on the STOP-BANG tool, and 10.4% had a confirmed diagnosis of OSA. STOP-BANG tool integration in the EHR and a team approach did not result in a sustainable increase in OSA screening. OSA diagnosis was increased to 3.3% in IMC patient population within the 6-month period. The team identified multiple barriers to screening and diagnosis of OSA in the IMC.
| S-EPMC5717931 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Around 110,000 people spend time in critical care units in England and Wales each year. The transition of care from the intensive care unit to the general ward exposes patients to potential harms from changes in healthcare providers and environment. Nurses working on general wards report anxiety and uncertainty when receiving patients from critical care. An innovative form of enhanced capability critical care outreach called 'iMobile' is being provided at King's College Hospital (KCH). Part of the remit of iMobile is to review patients who have been transferred from critical care to general wards. The iMobile team wished to improve the quality of critical care discharge summaries. A collaborative evidence-based quality improvement project was therefore undertaken by the iMobile team at KCH in conjunction with researchers from King's Improvement Science (KIS). Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) methodology was used. Three PDSA cycles were undertaken. Methods adopted comprised: a scoping literature review to identify relevant guidelines and research evidence to inform all aspects of the quality improvement project; a process mapping exercise; informal focus groups / interviews with staff; patient story-telling work with people who had experienced critical care and subsequent discharge to a general ward; and regular audits of the quality of both medical and nursing critical care discharge summaries. The following behaviour change interventions were adopted, taking into account evidence of effectiveness from published systematic reviews and considering the local context: regular audit and feedback of the quality of discharge summaries, feedback of patient experience, and championing and education delivered by local opinion leaders. The audit results were mixed across the trajectory of the project, demonstrating the difficulty of sustaining positive change. This was particularly important as critical care bed occupancy and through-put fluctuates which then impacts on work-load, with new cohorts of staff regularly passing through critical care. In addition to presenting the results of this quality improvement project, we also reflect on the lessons learned and make suggestions for future projects.
| S-EPMC4645923 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundRemote management is partially replacing routine follow-up in patients implanted with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). Although it reduces clinical staff time compared with standard in-office follow-up, a new definition of roles and responsibilities may be needed to review remote transmissions in an effective, efficient, and timely manner. Whether remote triage may be outsourced to an external remote monitoring center (ERMC) is still unclear.ObjectiveThe aim of this health care quality improvement project was to evaluate the feasibility of outsourcing remote triage to an ERMC to improve patient care and health care resource utilization.MethodsPatients (N=153) with implanted CIEDs were followed up for 8 months. An ERMC composed of nurses and physicians reviewed remote transmissions daily following a specific remote monitoring (RM) protocol. A 6-month benchmarking phase where patients' transmissions were managed directly by hospital staff was evaluated as a term of comparison.ResultsA total of 654 transmissions were recorded in the RM system and managed by the ERMC team within 2 working days, showing a significant time reduction compared with standard RM management (100% vs 11%, respectively, within 2 days; P<.001). A total of 84.3% (551/654) of the transmissions did not include a prioritized event and did not require escalation to the hospital clinician. High priority was assigned to 2.3% (15/654) of transmissions, which were communicated to the hospital team by email within 1 working day. Nonurgent device status events occurred in 88 cases and were communicated to the hospital within 2 working days. Of these, 11% (10/88) were followed by a hospitalization.ConclusionsThe outsourcing of RM management to an ERMC safely provides efficacy and efficiency gains in patients' care compared with a standard in-hospital management. Moreover, the externalization of RM management could be a key tool for saving dedicated staff and facility time with possible positive economic impact.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT01007474; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01007474.
| S-EPMC6938593 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This prospective service evaluation was designed to assess the availability of critical information required in vascular surgical clinics. All the data was collected via a repeated questionnaire, and the outcomes from each cycle were used to highlight where intervention was required to improve the surgical clinic experience. The first audit identified outpatient clinic deficiencies and allowed for problem analysis. Two Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycles then were undertaken. Interventions following each cycle included consultant access to online duplex scans and secretarial access to referral letters. Results from the first cycle showed that approximately 20% of clinic appointments were missing information and only 30% of these issues were resolved during the clinic using a work around. Following the first intervention; the numbers of missing patient notes reduced to 4.3% (10.5%), and referral letters to 3.6% (4.6%). Although the numbers of missing duplex scan results increased to 6.5% (3.3%), the new system of online scan results allowed for all scans to be accessed during the clinic. Following results of a second PDCA cycle, vascular surgical secretaries were given access to 'choose and book', a database of GP referral letters. Post intervention, all missing referral letters (2%) could be accessed immediately within the clinic setting. Data driven interventions and repeated PDCA cycles can improve hospital systems for minimal cost. With an annual clinic turnaround of 2500 patients, these interventions can reduce clinic delays and potential harm caused by unavailable records for up to 500 patients a year.
| S-EPMC4752700 | biostudies-other
Project description:Admissions for exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) present a significant proportion of patients in the acute medical take. The British Thoracic Society (BTS) provides guidelines for time specific interventions, that should be delivered to those with an acute exacerbation of COPD through the admission care bundle. These include correct diagnosis, correct assessment of oxygenation, early administration of treatment, recognition of respiratory failure, and specialist review. Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GHNHSFT) chose improvement in acute COPD care to be a local Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) scheme, which enables commissioners to reward excellence by linking a proportion of English healthcare providers' income to the achievement of local quality improvement goals. The effects of initiatives put in place by senior clinicians had waned, and further improvements were required to meet the CQUIN target. The aim of the scheme was to improve compliance with the BTS guidelines and CQUIN scheme for patients admitted with an exacerbation of COPD. Specific bundle paperwork to be used for all patients admitted to the Trust with an exacerbation of COPD was introduced to the Trust in June 2014, with training and education of medical staff at that time. This had improved compliance rates from 10% to 63% by September 2014. Compliance with each intervention was audited through the examination of notes of patients admitted with an exacerbation of COPD. Compliance rates had plateaued over the last three months, and so a focus group involving junior medical staff met in September 2014 to try to increase awareness further, in order to drive greater improvements in care, and meet the CQUIN requirements. Their strategies were implemented, and then compliance with the CQUIN requirements was reaudited as described above. The December 2014 audit results showed a further improvement in overall COPD care, with 73% of patients receiving all elements of the COPD admission care bundle, versus 63% in September 2014. Appropriate blood gas analysis, nebuliser administration, and respiratory review also improved. Prescription of steroids and antibiotics remained static, with 96% of patients receiving these treatments within four hours in the emergency department (ED). The only criteria which showed a decline was appropriate oxygen prescription, which dipped from 97% to 87%. After the effect of initial strategies plateaued, this quality improvement project facilitated a further increase in compliance with the CQUIN targets, both improving patient care, and safeguarding continued CQUIN funding. There is further work to be done to maintain and support further improvement in standards, and to encourage use of the COPD admission bundle paperwork for documentation purposes.
| S-EPMC4693060 | biostudies-literature