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A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward

AIMS: Our aim was to investigate the extent and impact of poor audio quality during remote ward rounds using Microsoft Teams. We intended to compare attendees' audio quality experience with our expectation that a cardioid polar microphone would make it difficult for attendees to hear all member...

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Autores principales: Hamour, Omer, Morrin, Hamilton
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10345299/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2023.284
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author Hamour, Omer
Morrin, Hamilton
author_facet Hamour, Omer
Morrin, Hamilton
author_sort Hamour, Omer
collection PubMed
description AIMS: Our aim was to investigate the extent and impact of poor audio quality during remote ward rounds using Microsoft Teams. We intended to compare attendees' audio quality experience with our expectation that a cardioid polar microphone would make it difficult for attendees to hear all members of the multidisciplinary team. We also hypothesized that switching to an omnidirectional recording system would improve perceived audio quality, communication, and patient care. METHODS: This study is a continuation of a previous quality improvement project carried out on a general adult ward within the same Trust. This iteration involved individuals who participated remotely in ward rounds at a dementia specialist ward over a four-month period in 2022/2023. Participants of the study included staff from the ward team, community care coordinators and patient family members, who completed a digital feedback questionnaire about the audio quality. Due to the nature of their illness, no patients completed the questionnaire. There were no exclusion criteria. Data from Likert scale questions were analysed. Little demographic data were collected, and qualitative data were analysed by identifying themes and grouping responses based on thematic frequency. RESULTS: In the pre-implementation survey, 12 responses were received from patient family members, 9 ward team members and 2 community mental health workers. Before the intervention, 3/12 participants rated the sound quality as "bad" and the same number were "dissatisfied" with the sound quality during ward rounds (modal response "neutral" for both, 6/10). Only 3/12 attendees reported being able to hear and understand everyone present in the ward round all the time, and one person reported only rarely hearing and understanding a single person in the room when they spoke. All respondents agreed that the sound quality impacted their experience of the ward round. The three most common issues reported were people speaking too far from the microphone, voices sounding muffled, and poor internet connection causing gaps in speech. Common themes identified in the qualitative data included: frustration, disengagement, and damage to patient care. CONCLUSION: In summary, our findings indicate that when using a built-in laptop microphone with unidirectional pick-up, remote ward round attendees were not satisfied with the audio quality. However, this may be improved through the use of an omnidirectional system. Potential benefits from this technology may be optimised through the use of automatic transcription for individuals who may be hearing impaired, and ensuring optimal positioning for adequate sound detection.
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spelling pubmed-103452992023-07-15 A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward Hamour, Omer Morrin, Hamilton BJPsych Open Quality Improvement AIMS: Our aim was to investigate the extent and impact of poor audio quality during remote ward rounds using Microsoft Teams. We intended to compare attendees' audio quality experience with our expectation that a cardioid polar microphone would make it difficult for attendees to hear all members of the multidisciplinary team. We also hypothesized that switching to an omnidirectional recording system would improve perceived audio quality, communication, and patient care. METHODS: This study is a continuation of a previous quality improvement project carried out on a general adult ward within the same Trust. This iteration involved individuals who participated remotely in ward rounds at a dementia specialist ward over a four-month period in 2022/2023. Participants of the study included staff from the ward team, community care coordinators and patient family members, who completed a digital feedback questionnaire about the audio quality. Due to the nature of their illness, no patients completed the questionnaire. There were no exclusion criteria. Data from Likert scale questions were analysed. Little demographic data were collected, and qualitative data were analysed by identifying themes and grouping responses based on thematic frequency. RESULTS: In the pre-implementation survey, 12 responses were received from patient family members, 9 ward team members and 2 community mental health workers. Before the intervention, 3/12 participants rated the sound quality as "bad" and the same number were "dissatisfied" with the sound quality during ward rounds (modal response "neutral" for both, 6/10). Only 3/12 attendees reported being able to hear and understand everyone present in the ward round all the time, and one person reported only rarely hearing and understanding a single person in the room when they spoke. All respondents agreed that the sound quality impacted their experience of the ward round. The three most common issues reported were people speaking too far from the microphone, voices sounding muffled, and poor internet connection causing gaps in speech. Common themes identified in the qualitative data included: frustration, disengagement, and damage to patient care. CONCLUSION: In summary, our findings indicate that when using a built-in laptop microphone with unidirectional pick-up, remote ward round attendees were not satisfied with the audio quality. However, this may be improved through the use of an omnidirectional system. Potential benefits from this technology may be optimised through the use of automatic transcription for individuals who may be hearing impaired, and ensuring optimal positioning for adequate sound detection. Cambridge University Press 2023-07-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10345299/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2023.284 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This does not need to be placed under each abstract, just each page is fine.
spellingShingle Quality Improvement
Hamour, Omer
Morrin, Hamilton
A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title_full A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title_fullStr A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title_full_unstemmed A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title_short A Quality Improvement Project to Improve Audio Quality for Remote Attendees of a Ward Round at a London Older Adult Psychiatric Ward
title_sort quality improvement project to improve audio quality for remote attendees of a ward round at a london older adult psychiatric ward
topic Quality Improvement
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10345299/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2023.284
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