Improving Surgical Outcomes and Satisfaction at Scale

Institute for Healthcare Improvement | 2022 | Improving Surgical Outcomes and Satisfaction at Scale

Leading up to surgery, it’s common to list risks the patient faces. It’s been far less common to proactively address those risks, and holistically optimize patient health, in advance of surgery. This latter approach is called “prehabilitation,” and it can reduce adverse events during a surgery, improve outcomes and recovery for patients, and increase patient and caregiver satisfaction.

This blog post from the IHI outlines work in the area of prerehabilitation

Further details available from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement

Improving the quality and content of discharge summaries on acute medicine wards

Scarfield P, Shepherd TD, Stapleton C, et al. (2022). Improving the quality and content of discharge summaries on acute medicine wards: a quality improvement project. BMJ Open Quality.  11. e001780. doi: 10.1136/bmjoq-2021-001780

Abstract

Discharge summaries are important medical documents that summarise a patient’s hospital admission. The Royal College of Physicians provides standardised guidance on the content of discharge summaries, given their important role as a handover document to general practitioners (GPs). Our project started in June 2020 on an acute medical ward, where significant variation had been noted in the quality and content of discharge summaries. A multidisciplinary team (MDT) was formed including doctors, nurses and hospital/community pharmacists, as well as a patient representative, to ensure active patient co-design. The problem was scoped by asking GPs to provide feedback via surveys and process mapping. Our aim was to increase the compliance of discharge summaries with 10 core criteria from a baseline of 55 per cent to 95 per cent by June 2021. Change ideas were developed by the MDT and were tested using plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycles that included additional pharmacy support, a discharge summary template and individualised feedback. The project reached its goal of 95 per cent compliance in January 2021, 5 months ahead of the target date, and this improvement has been sustained since. The project expanded to a second acute medical unit ward in May 2021. The expanded project reached its goal of 90 per cent compliance within 6 weeks and maintained sustained improvement with further PDSA cycles. A standard operating procedure has been created to help embed the changes on these wards. Our future aims are to redesign and improve the current electronic system and to help spread positive changes throughout the Trust.

Improving the quality and content of discharge summaries on acute medicine wards: a quality improvement project [paper]

Goldacre recommendations to improve care through use of data

Department of Health and Social Care | April 2022 | Goldacre recommendations to improve care through use of data

• Professor Ben Goldacre publishes findings from an independent review to improve use of health data in NHS
• Recommendations include increasing transparency and modernising software infrastructure to boost research whilst maintaining high security standards
• Findings have shaped the Health and Social Care Data Strategy, being published later this year, which will set out a vision to make better use of data to save lives

Goldacre recommendations to improve care through use of data