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Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment
Annual patient attendances at a pre-operative assessment department increased by 24.8% from 5659 in 2009, to 7062 in 2012. The unit was staffed by administrative staff, nurses, and health care assistants (HCA). Medical review was accessed via on call medical staff, or notes were sent to anaesthetist...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
British Publishing Group
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4645878/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26734351 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjquality.u201341.w1226 |
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author | Stark, Cameron Gent, Anne Kirkland, Linda |
author_facet | Stark, Cameron Gent, Anne Kirkland, Linda |
author_sort | Stark, Cameron |
collection | PubMed |
description | Annual patient attendances at a pre-operative assessment department increased by 24.8% from 5659 in 2009, to 7062 in 2012. The unit was staffed by administrative staff, nurses, and health care assistants (HCA). Medical review was accessed via on call medical staff, or notes were sent to anaesthetists for further review. With rising demand, patient waits increased. The average lead time for a patient (time from entering the department to leaving) was 79 minutes. 9.3% of patients attended within two weeks of their scheduled surgery date. 10% of patients were asked to return on a later day, as there was not sufficient capacity to undertake their assessment. There were nine routes of referral in to the department. Patients moved between different clinic rooms and the waiting area several times. Work patterns were uneven, as many attendances were from out-patient clinics which meant peak attendance times were linked to clinic times. There were substantial differences in the approaches of different nurses, making the HCA role difficult. Patients reported dissatisfaction with waits. Using a Lean quality improvement process with rapid PDSA cycles, the service changed to one in which patients were placed in a room, and remained there for the duration of their assessment. Standard work was developed for HCWs and nurses. Rooms were standardised using 5S processes, and set up improved to reduce time spent looking for supplies. A co-ordinator role was introduced using existing staff to monitor flow and to organise the required medical assessments and ECGs. Timing of booked appointments were altered to take account of clinic times. Routes in to the department were reduced from nine to one. Ten months after the work began, the average lead time had reduced to 59 minutes. The proportion of people attending within two weeks of their surgery decreased from 9.3% to 5.3%. Referrals for an anaesthetic opinion decreased from 30% to 20%, and in the month reviewed no one had to return to be seen as a result of limited capacity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4645878 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | British Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46458782016-01-05 Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment Stark, Cameron Gent, Anne Kirkland, Linda BMJ Qual Improv Rep BMJ Quality Improvement Programme Annual patient attendances at a pre-operative assessment department increased by 24.8% from 5659 in 2009, to 7062 in 2012. The unit was staffed by administrative staff, nurses, and health care assistants (HCA). Medical review was accessed via on call medical staff, or notes were sent to anaesthetists for further review. With rising demand, patient waits increased. The average lead time for a patient (time from entering the department to leaving) was 79 minutes. 9.3% of patients attended within two weeks of their scheduled surgery date. 10% of patients were asked to return on a later day, as there was not sufficient capacity to undertake their assessment. There were nine routes of referral in to the department. Patients moved between different clinic rooms and the waiting area several times. Work patterns were uneven, as many attendances were from out-patient clinics which meant peak attendance times were linked to clinic times. There were substantial differences in the approaches of different nurses, making the HCA role difficult. Patients reported dissatisfaction with waits. Using a Lean quality improvement process with rapid PDSA cycles, the service changed to one in which patients were placed in a room, and remained there for the duration of their assessment. Standard work was developed for HCWs and nurses. Rooms were standardised using 5S processes, and set up improved to reduce time spent looking for supplies. A co-ordinator role was introduced using existing staff to monitor flow and to organise the required medical assessments and ECGs. Timing of booked appointments were altered to take account of clinic times. Routes in to the department were reduced from nine to one. Ten months after the work began, the average lead time had reduced to 59 minutes. The proportion of people attending within two weeks of their surgery decreased from 9.3% to 5.3%. Referrals for an anaesthetic opinion decreased from 30% to 20%, and in the month reviewed no one had to return to be seen as a result of limited capacity. British Publishing Group 2015-01-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4645878/ /pubmed/26734351 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjquality.u201341.w1226 Text en © 2015, Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode |
spellingShingle | BMJ Quality Improvement Programme Stark, Cameron Gent, Anne Kirkland, Linda Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title | Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title_full | Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title_fullStr | Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title_full_unstemmed | Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title_short | Improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
title_sort | improving patient flow in pre-operative assessment |
topic | BMJ Quality Improvement Programme |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4645878/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26734351 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjquality.u201341.w1226 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT starkcameron improvingpatientflowinpreoperativeassessment AT gentanne improvingpatientflowinpreoperativeassessment AT kirklandlinda improvingpatientflowinpreoperativeassessment |