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- John A Ford, Craig Mackay, Chris Peach, Paul Davies, and Malcolm Loudon.
- Department of General Surgery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, UK. john.ford@abdn.ac.uk
- J Eval Clin Pract. 2013 Feb 1; 19 (1): 106-11.
BackgroundThe Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) published Postoperative Management in Adults in 2004, advocating post-operative assessments to optimize post-operative care. Our aim was to improve post-operative assessments in a surgical high-dependency unit (HDU).MethodsA prospective audit of post-operative admissions to surgical HDU over two 4-week periods was performed. Medical and nursing documentations were reviewed. A tailored multi-modal approach targeting specific barriers to change was used to implement changes; education of staff, introduction of designated HDU bleeps and a post-operative assessment pro forma. Re-audit was performed after 6 months.Main FindingsThe first cycle included 72 patients and the second included 62 patients. Time to assessment improved after changes. Forty-six (74%) patients compared with 27 (37%) patients before were assessed within 4 hours. The number of individual reviews increased and number of reviews due to nursing concerns decreased. Thirty-eight (61%) patients compared with 15 (21%) patients before were assessed through an individual review and one (2%) patient compared with 23 (32%) patients due to nursing concerns. Documentation improved. Documentation of relevant past medical history, medications, allergies, complications and post-operative instructions improved from 2 (3%), 1 (1%), 0, 8 (11%) and 26 (36%), to 18 (29%), 28 (45%), 20 (32%), 18 (29%) and 55 (89%), respectively. Difference between first and second cycles was highly significant throughout (P < 0.001).ConclusionClinical practice was improved by a tailored multi-modal approach. Educating staff, improving communication and documentation, and re-audit has shown significant improvement. However, further improvements are required to reach best practice.© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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