Assessment and enrolment process for liver transplantation: nursing management through quality indicators

OBJECTIVE: To establish, measure and analyze quality indicators in the evaluation and enrolment process of patients in a liver transplant program. METHODS: A quantitative and non-experimental research, with data collected from the database of a liver transplant program, from September 2012 to September 2014. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quality indicators identified. RESULTS: We analyzed 1,311 visits in the transplant outpatient clinic, most males (66.7%), white (65.1%), mean age of 53 (±12.5) years, from the Southeastern Region (91.2%), and from the State of São Paulo (80.8%). The indicators measured were efficiency of patient admission process (54.8%), efficiency of evaluation of transplant indication (39.9%), efficacy of treatment of patients seen in the program (21.8%), and waiting time to inclusion in the waiting list, median of 84 days (36-142). CONCLUSION: The quality indicators analyzed in this study enabled a quantitative view of the process, facilitating management of results and benchmarking with other transplant centers. Continuous monitoring can optimize resource allocation and planning of services in patient's admission process.