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): :
Staff Engagement and Empowerment (motivating staff / teamwork / work revamp tackling manpower issue / staff wellness / OSH / retention)
Authors (including presenting author) :
CHEUNG HT (1), (4), TSOI SCT (1)(3), LEUNG YKN (1)(2), CHIN YMD(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Nethersole Clinical Simulation Training Centre, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (2) Department of Intensive Care, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (3) Nursing Services Division, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (4) Department of Occupational Therapy, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital
Introduction :
Occupational Therapy (OT) is one of the major rehabilitation professions, providing training to patients on activities of daily living; returning to work, school, and leisure activities; covering wide range of specialties such as medical, orthopedic, surgical, pediatrics and psychiatrics. Within the hospital setting, most of allied health departments, including OT, are usually located far away from emergency department or medical wards that timely emergency support from doctors or nurses could not be available in case of any emergency happened. Although system is in place that resuscitation team and hospital administration could provide emergency support, the training of allied health staff in immediate management of patient condition is the critical and essentials. To meet the critical needs, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (PYNEH) OT department collaborates with Nethersole Clinical Stimulation Training Centre (NCSTC) to arrange in-situ simulation training on emergency situation management in OT department that mastery of specific knowledge, procedural skills; as well as communication, coordination, and critical thinking.
Objectives :
To promote the clinical performance, communication, and quality teamwork during patient emergency situation through in-situ simulation training to occupational therapists and patient care assistants (PCA) in PYNEH OT department.
Methodology :
2 classes with total 21 occupational therapists and 15 patient care assistants were recruited to the in-situ simulation trainings in PYNEH OT Department. 31% were resident occupational therapists (ROT), 25% were advanced occupational therapists (APOT) and senior occupational therapists (SOT), while 44% were PCA. Scenarios including change of patient condition during rehabilitation and patient physical aggression during rehabilitation were adopted to enhance the situation awareness and management during emergency situation in rehabilitation room/gym. This allowed participants understanding the roles and responsibility of staff in occupational therapy department during emergency situation; and enhance the communication skills with OT team and clinical handover to case doctor and nurse.
Result & Outcome :
Measurement of Improvement: In the comparison of pre- and post-questionnaire, participants demonstrated competence in coordinate emergency situation from average score 4 out of 6 to 5.6 out of 6. Participants also showed capable to apply Crew Resource Management (CRM) in emergency situation for better teamwork and communication from average score of 3.4 out of 6 to 5.5 out of 6. Some comments of this in-situ training are promising including “very good and impressive training”; “good explanation and demonstration”; “can improve work efficiency and accuracy” etc. The overall satisfaction score of this in-situ training was 5.9 out of 6. Way Forward: In the future, simulation training should be further developed in collaboration with HA wide occupational therapists to provide the standard of practice and enhance the effectiveness of services delivery, not merely on managing emergency situation, but also other areas such as conflict management, lone work awareness etc. Additionally, the integration of new technology such as developed OT related training model, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), could significantly improve the fidelity of training and clinical performance of the OT staff in the future.
