Proposed Topic (Most preferred): :
Clinical Safety and Quality Service I (Projects aiming to improve efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery to meet international standards)
Authors (including presenting author) :
Ng PK(1), Ho HW(1), Kwan KY(1), Yip KC(1), Ho MW(1), Lau PP(1), Wu TC(1), Tse SF(1), Yim CW(1), Cheng YFR(1), Tseng CKD(1), Kwan HY(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Respiratory Medicine and Extended Care Department, Kowloon Hospital
Introduction :
Effective communication between doctors and nurses is crucial in patient care and their recovery. It is especially paramount to provide updated and clear information on patient condition for doctors to optimize their management plan, which is particularly important in wound care. Nurses will perform wound assessments regularly during the patients’ journey in hospital. Apart from documentation in patient notes, nurses will also take wound photos and upload them to the photo-album in CMS so that doctors could view. The wound photos facilitate accurate diagnosis and help to monitor the progress of the wound’s condition. It also provides an objective record of wound healing and the impact of treatment. In the past, nurses wrote a reminder on a piece of paper and stick it to the patient chart to alert doctors that a new wound photo was ready for viewing so that they could adjust their management plan as appropriate. However, such communication was ineffective as doctors might overlook the message and there was no closed-loop communication with nurses. In such, a wound photo card was designed to facilitate clinical hand over between health-carers.
Objectives :
To enhance the communication between doctors and nurses on wound care and to ensure that the most updated information on wound condition is provided to all clinical parties.
Methodology :
A conspicuous alert card was designed to remind doctors to view a new wound photo. Case nurse would flag the alert card on the latest page of patient’s progress notes and the doctor has to return the card to the case nurse after viewing the photo. Nurses would confirm with doctors whether the new wound photos have been viewed, if the alert card remained in patient’s progress notes.
Result & Outcome :
Both doctors and nurses expressed satisfaction with the alert card and the new workflow, as it effectively enhanced their mutual communication on patient care. This improvement programme demonstrated that simple gadget could be of big use.
