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Improving clinical handover: Development of a web-based intensive care unit consultation system with structured reply generation.

ABSTRACT: Clinical handover is a process of transferring a patient's clinical information from one team to another. Poor quality of handover of critically ill patients associates with misunderstanding, delay in treatment, and adverse outcomes. Therefore, a high quality and standardized information flow process and documentation are definitely crucial. We have developed a web-based platform for generating printed ICU consultation reply and data collection. Baseline measurement was performed by randomly identified 50 case records among 220 ICU consultations in March 2015, before the implementation of the system. We found that there were only 16% of cases had printed ICU consultation reply, 42% had documented patient's premorbid activity of daily living, 30% had recorded patient's mobility, 74% had written down patient's past medical history, 72% had clearly stated the ICU admission decision, 18% had provided the reasons for rejecting ICU admission, and 32% had remarked the mechanism for contacting ICU senior to review the admission. After implementation of the ICU consultation reply platform, the percentage of using printed consultation reply has increased to more than 90%, documentation of patient's morbidity and mobility have raised to over 80% and patient's past medical history has been recorded in over 95% of cases. Standardised ICU admission decision tree has been designed to assist ICU doctor to clearly state the ICU admission decision and the reasons behind. Appeal mechanism for doctors in general ward to contact ICU seniors for case discussion is included in every consultation reply. In short, ICU consultation platform improves the quality of ICU consultation reply and enhances communication among ICU doctors and general ward staff. It also serves as a big data pool for audit cycles which in turns direct ICU consultation service improvement.

SUBMITTER: Ho JK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4856893 | biostudies-other | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:PurposeTo systematically review and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in order to improve the safety and efficiency of patient handover between intensive care unit (ICU) and general ward healthcare professionals at ICU discharge.MethodsPubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched for intervention studies with the aim to improve clinical handover between ICU and general ward healthcare professionals that had been published up to and including June 2013. The methods for article inclusion and data analysis were pre-specified and aligned with recommendations outlined in the PRISMA guideline. Two reviewers independently extracted data (study purpose, setting, population, method of sampling, sample size, intervention characteristics, outcome, and implementation activities) and assessed the quality of the included studies.ResultsFrom the 6,591 citations initially extracted from the six databases, we included 11 studies in this review. Of these, six (55 %) reported statistically significant effects. Effective interventions included liaison nurses to improve communication and coordination of care and forms to facilitate timely, complete and accurate handover information. Effective interventions resulted in improved continuity of care (e.g., reduced discharge delay) and in reduced adverse events. Inconsistent effects were observed for use of care, namely, reduction of length of stay versus increase of readmissions to higher care. No statistically significant effects were found in the reduction of mortality. The overall methodological quality of the 11 studies reviewed was relatively low, with an average score of 4.5 out of 11 points.ConclusionsThis review shows that liaison nurses and handover forms are promising interventions to improve the quality of patient handover between the ICU and general ward. More robust evidence is needed on the effectiveness of interventions aiming to improve ICU handover and supportive implementation strategies.

Project description:Pharmacists in the intensive care unit (ICU) provide pharmaceutical care to critically ill patients. Identification and resolution of drug therapy problems improves outcomes for these patients. To maintain continuity of care, pharmacotherapy plans should be transferred to a receiving pharmacist upon discharge of patients from the ICU. No previous studies have addressed the development or evaluation of a systematic, standardized clinical handover tool and process for pharmacists.To assess pharmacists' satisfaction with and utilization of a pharmacotherapy-specific handover tool and process.Plan-do-study-act methodology was employed to develop a clinical handover tool and process, which were implemented in a Canadian health authority. For evaluation of the tool and process, a multicentre, online survey questionnaire was distributed to 14 clinical pharmacists in the ICU and ward settings at 5 hospitals between February 15 and April 22, 2016.Thirteen of the pharmacists completed the survey. All 13 pharmacists (100%) were satisfied with usability; 12 (92%) were satisfied with training, organization, and accuracy of the process; and 11 (85%) were satisfied with completeness and efficiency. Most pharmacists conducted 1 or 2 handovers per week, with each having a duration of 3-5 min. Seven (54%) of the respondents reported that they communicated handovers mostly or exclusively by telephone, and 6 (46%) reported using mostly or exclusively face-to-face communication. However, 6 (46%) reported a preference for face-to-face communication, and 3 (23%) reported a preference for the telephone; the remaining 4 (31%) had no preference for mode of communication.Respondents were highly satisfied with the handover tool and process. ICU pharmacists appeared more satisfied with the training, organization, and completeness of handover, whereas ward pharmacists appeared more satisfied with the accuracy and efficiency of handover. Workload requirements were minimal, and face-to-face interaction, although slightly less well utilized than the telephone, was the preferred method of communication.

Project description:IntroductionPatient handover is a crucial transition requiring a high level of coordination and communication. In the BC Children's Hospital (BCCH) pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), 10 adverse events stemming from issues that should have been addressed at the operating room (OR) to PICU handover were reported into the patient safety learning system (PSLS) within 1 year. We aimed to undertake a quality improvement project to increase adherence to a standardized OR to PICU handover process to 100% within a 6-month time frame. In doing so, the secondary aim was to reduce adverse events by 50% within the same 6-month period.MethodsThe model for improvement and a Plan, Do, Study, Act method of quality improvement was used in this project. The adverse events were reviewed to identify root causes. The findings were reviewed by a multidisciplinary inter-departmental group comprised of members from surgery, anesthesia, and intensive care. Issues were batched into themes to address the most problematic parts of handover that were contributing to risk.InterventionA bedside education campaign was initiated to familiarize the team with an existing handover standard. The project team then formulated a new simplified visual handover tool with the mnemonic "PATHQS" where each letter denoted a step addressing a theme that had been noted in the pre-intervention work as contributing to adverse events.ResultsAdherence to standardized handover at 6 months improved from 69% to 92%. This improvement was sustained at 12 months and 3 years after the introduction of PATHQS. In addition, there were zero PSLS events relating to handover at 6 and 12 months, with only one filed by 36 months. Notably, staff self-reporting of safety concerns during handover reduced from 69% to 13% at 6 months and 0% at 3 years. The PATHQS tool created in this work also spread to six other units within the hospital as well as to one adult teaching hospital.ConclusionA simplified handover tool built collaboratively between departments can improve the quality and adherence of OR to PICU handover and improve patient safety. Simplification makes it adaptable and applicable in many different healthcare settings.

Project description:Critically ill intensive care unit (ICU) patients commonly develop severe muscle wasting and impaired muscle function, leading to delayed recovery, with subsequent increased morbidity and financial costs, and decrease quality of life of survivors. Acute Quadriplegic Myopathy (AQM) is one of the most common neuromuscular disorders associated with ICU-acquired muscle weakness. Although there are no available treatments for the ICU-acquired muscle weakness, it has been demonstrated that early mobilization can improve its prognosis and functional outcomes. This study aims at improving our understanding of the effects of passive mechanical loading on skeletal muscle structure and function by using a unique experimental rat ICU model allowing analyses of the temporal sequence of changes in mechanically ventilated and pharmacologically paralyzed animals at durations varying from 6 h to 14 days. Results show that passive mechanical loading alleviated the muscle wasting and the loss of force-generation associated with the ICU intervention, resulting in a doubling of the functional capacity of the loaded vs. unloaded muscles after a 2-week ICU intervention. We demonstrated that the improved maintenance of muscle structure and function is likely a consequence of a reduced oxidative stress, and a reduced loss of the molecular motor protein myosin. A complex temporal gene expression pattern, delineated by microarray analysis, was observed with loading-induced changes in transcript levels of sarcomeric proteins, muscle developmental processes, stress response, ECM/cell adhesion proteins and metabolism. Thus, the results from this study show that passive mechanical loading alleviates the severe negative consequences on muscle structure and function associated with mechanical silencing in ICU patients, strongly supporting early and intense physical therapy in immobilized ICU patients. This study aims to unravel the effects of passive mechanical loading on skeletal muscle structure and function in an experimental rat ICU model at duration varying between 6h and 14 days. A total of 23 experimental female Sprague-Dawley rats were included in this study. The experimental rats were anaesthetized, treated with the neuromuscular blocking agent (NMBA) M-NM-1-cobrotoxin, mechanically ventilated and monitored for durations varying from 6h to 4 days (n=13), from 5 to 8 days (n=4), and from 9 to 14 days (n=6). The left leg of the animal was activated for 6 hours at the shortest duration and 12 hours per day at durations 12 hours and longer throughout the experiment, using a mechanical lever arm that produced a continuous passive maximal ankle joint flexions-extensions at a speed of 13.3 cycles per minute. Muscle biopsies were obtained from gastrocnemius muscle (proximal part) immediately after euthanasia, were quickly frozen in liquid propane cooled by liquid nitrogen, and stored at -80M-BM-0C. RNA was extracted.

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Improving clinical handover: Development of a web-based intensive care unit consultation system with structured reply generation.

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