Proposed Topic (Most preferred): :
Clinical Safety and Quality Service II (Projects aiming to enhance clinical safety and outcomes, clinical governance / risk management)
Proposed Topic (Second preferred): :
Clinical Safety and Quality Service III (Projects aiming at quality service to patients and their carers)
Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan CW (1), Lee YK (2)
Affiliation :
(1) Department of Anaesthesiology, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
With the advance of technology, there is an increase in reliance of electrical appliances for medical professionals. There is no exception in the operating theaters, including but not limited to continuous patient monitoring, anesthetic ventilator, surgical instruments etc.
In the case of power outage or temporary electricity supply interruption, it may pose potential risks to patients. On 21st June 2022, massive blackout happened in New Territories West caused by a cable bridge fire incident in Yuen Long. One of the patient requiring emergency surgery require transfer to another hospital due to disruption in power supply.
Failure to understand the risks of electricity outage poses a significant threat on patient safety. From loss of intraoperative datas to temporary suspension of surgery. The effect on patients during power outages could be affected by the connection of electrical appliances to different types of electrical sockets (regular and uninterruptible power supply)
One of the key preventive measures for electrical outage would be the uninterruptible power supply. UPS consists of separate direct current batteries, which automatically power the system once the commercial alternative current supply goes out. All the essential equipment should be connected to the UPS sockets. However this may be overlooked, as the UPS sockets are nearly identical to regular non UPS sockets.
Objectives :
We would like to assess and improve the compliance of Operating theater staff in United Christian Hospital to the protocol regarding the UPS sockets, in order to improve patient safety in case of power outage.
Methodology :
We firstly assessed the compliance of operating theatre staff to the UPS protocol
According to the UPS protocol in UCH, the mission-critical medical equipment that should be connected with UPS socket includes
Anesthetic machine, computer
Cryo machine
Electro surgical unit (ESU)
Harmonic ACE
Laser Machine
Medical TV system
Microscope
Navigation system
Phaco machine
Sono Surg Ultracision
Video station for Flexible endoscope
X ray machine
We would record and note the correctly as well as incorrectly connected electrical appliances in respective groups in operating theaters in UCH.
Data was collected for 1 week, during operating hour of UCH OT
Intervention then will be given to UCH OT personnel, including anesthetists, nurses, operating theatre assistants. Including a presentation and handout. Proper labelling of both the electrical sockets and electrical appliance to alert individuals.
The above compliance assessment was repeated after intervention given, assess for improvement regarding UPS compliance afterwards. Data collection will also be a week at the same operating hour at 10am weekdays.
Data was analyzed using Chi Square Test for comparing categorical variables. Compliance before and after intervention was compared.
Result & Outcome :
Null hypothesis would be that compliance to UPS socket connection is unrelated to our intervention
Before the intervention, 60 electrical appliances were correctly connected (63.16%) while 35 electrical appliances were incorrectly connected (36.84%).
After the intervention, 78 electrical appliances were correctly connected (78%) while 22 electrical appliances were incorrectly connected (22%)
The chi-square statistic is 5.1879. The p-value is .022744, the null hypothesis is rejected at p< 0.05. We concluded that there is a difference in compliance before and after intervention, and that our intervention has a positive effect on the compliance on UPS socket connection.
