BMJ quality & safety
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BMJ quality & safety · Jun 2011
Multicenter StudyEvaluation of a preoperative team briefing: a new communication routine results in improved clinical practice.
BACKGROUND Suboptimal communication within healthcare teams can lead to adverse patient outcomes. Team briefings were previously associated with improved communication patterns, and we assessed the impact of briefings on clinical practice. To quantify the impact of the preoperative team briefing on direct patient care, we studied the timing of preoperative antibiotic administration as compared to accepted treatment guidelines. ⋯ In cases where the timing of antibiotics administration was documented unambiguously in the chart (n=259 pre-intervention and n=283 post-intervention), antibiotic prophylaxis was on time for 77.6% of cases in the pre-intervention phase of the study, and for 87.6% of cases in the post-intervention phase (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Use of a preoperative team checklist briefing was associated with improved physician compliance with antibiotic administration guidelines. Based on the results, recommendations to enhance timely antibiotic therapy are provided.
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BMJ quality & safety · Jun 2011
Hospital doctors' workflow interruptions and activities: an observation study.
BACKGROUND Interruptions of hospital doctors' workflow are a frequent stressor, eventually jeopardising quality of clinical performance. To enhance the safety of hospital doctors' work, it is necessary to analyse frequency and circumstances of workflow interruptions. AIM To quantify workflow interruptions among hospital doctors, identify frequent sources and relate sources to doctors' concurrent activities. ⋯ Telephones and bleepers were the most frequently recorded type of work interruption. The combined analysis of doctors' activities and concurrent workflow interruptions revealed that the likelihood of the occurrence of certain types of interruption depended on the tasks being carried out by the doctor. CONCLUSION The present method may be useful for quantifying and distinguishing sources of hospital doctors' workflow interruptions and useful in raising awareness of organisational circumstances.
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BMJ quality & safety · Jun 2011
Comparative StudyImpact of hospital-wide process redesign on clinical outcomes: a comparative study of internally versus externally led intervention.
INTRODUCTION In response to increasing demand for hospital beds, institution-wide clinical process redesign has been advocated for improving efficiency. METHODS This retrospective, before-after study involved five tertiary hospitals in Queensland, Australia and assessed effects of externally led redesign over 6 months within two hospitals, comprising ward-based innovations led by consultancy-led standardised processes, and internally led redesign over 25 months in one hospital which implemented medical assessment and planning unit, 23 h elective surgical ward and new bed management processes. The primary outcome measures were control chart changes in emergency department (ED) access block and overdue category 1 elective surgery waits over 3.5 years involving intervention hospitals and two control hospitals. ⋯ In contrast, at the internally led redesign hospital, there were two decreases in access block outside control limits during the intervention period, resulting in a decrease from a baseline average of 55% to a postintervention average of 22%. All hospitals showed declines in elective surgery waits with oscillations in data indicating the existence of special-cause factors other than redesign. CONCLUSION Internally led compared with externally led redesign led to superior and sustained improvements in ED access block as a result of major structural reforms that were driven by committed clinicians and managers and cut across departmental boundaries.