Future hospital journal最新文献

The UK's national health services are unique in having a well established programme of national clinical audits and databases across medical, surgical and mental health conditions. The Royal College of Physicians' (RCP) Clinical Effectivess and Evaluation Unit leads many of the largest and most mature audits in partnership with specialist societies, other colleges, patient groups and academic institutions. In this paper, we shall trace the development of national audit over the last 2 decades, explore the mechanisms by which this has helped improve care and discuss how national clinical audits and databases can best support quality improvement in the NHS of the future.

This part of the Future Hospital Journal is where you will find regular overview updates on progress made by the Future Hospital Programme of the Royal College of Physicians, together with its partners, in realising the vision of the Future Hospital Commission. We very much welcome your feedback. If you have any comments, or would like to be involved in the work of the Programme, please contact futurehospital@rcplondon.ac.uk.

Existing evidence shows that restrictive blood transfusion is safe and may avert potential harm associated with more liberal transfusion strategies. A significant number of patients are being both unnecessarily transfused and over-transfused for their age, diagnosis and comorbidities. We describe the implementation of a behavioural strategy through educational sessions and the provision of individualised patient-centred advice, offering haematinic investigation and supplementation where appropriate. We compared our interventional data with a retrospective analysis of patients receiving blood transfusion for number of units transfused, haemoglobin triggers and incidence of haematinic investigations. The data were also analysed for patient length of stay and cost effectiveness. There was a significant reduction in the number of red cell units transfused across all specialties (p=0.003). In total, 431 units were transfused in the interventional group compared with 571 in the control group. There was a significant reduction in over-transfusion (p=0.003). Patients undergoing haematinic testing increased by 16.6% (p=0.0002). There was no change in length of hospital stay and our strategy has been shown to not only be cost effective, but provide significant monetary saving. Our patient-centred approach, through clinician engagement and challenging outdated behaviours, has been shown to significantly reduce inappropriate blood transfusions.

We performed a retrospective cohort comparison study to look at the processes for concentrating geriatric resources in the acute admissions area in a general hospital in the UK and compare key outcomes. The number of consultant geriatricians and other staff working at the 'front door' - acute medical unit (AMU) and short stay ward (SSW) - was increased. We compared 'front door' outcomes with whole department outcomes in 2013 and 2014, looking at the proportion of patients discharged within 3 and 5 days of admission, the proportion discharged from the 'front door', mean lengths of stay (LOS) and readmissions within 28 days of discharge. There were 1,147 and 1,381 discharge episodes in 2013 and 2014, respectively. 'Front door' discharges rose from 36% to 46% (p<0.001) between 2013 and 2014, and the proportion of 'front door' discharges occurring within 3 days rose from 56% (2013) to 68% (2014), compared with 35% and 33% for the department as a whole (p=0.006). The mean LOS at the 'front door' fell from 6.1 to 3.8 days (p=0.007). Readmissions from 'front door' discharges rose from 12% to 14% (p=0.004). The change in the configuration of the acute geriatric service was associated with more favourable discharge performance outcomes at the 'front door' but modest improvements in discharge performance for the geriatric service as a whole.

The Academy of Medical Royal College's report Quality improvement - training for better outcomes sets a path for the normalisation of quality improvement as part of all health professionals' jobs. This accompanies similar calls to action by the King's Fund and the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management and is aligned with NHS Improvement and Health Education England future strategies. These exhortations to action come on the backdrop of increased fiscal constraints within the NHS, low morale, a burgeoning volume of research evidence and audit outputs and increasing complexity of how we deliver care in a bewildering NHS landscape. Asking the question 'how can we do something better?' or 'do we really need to do this?', and building our resilience and capability to respond effectively gives us new purpose, the right skills and a means to influence and make a difference to the safety, -effectiveness and experience of patient care. Most importantly, we do this through harnessing the talents of -multiprofessional teams - with meaningful patient involvement - to rediscover the joy and optimism in our work and what truly motivates us and to see this translated into improved sustainable outcomes for our patients and our working days.

Delirium remains the most common hospital complication. Occurrence rates are set to rise as the population ages and, despite being preventable and treatable, delirium continues to be under-recognised. Given the adverse outcomes associated with delirium and the considerable financial burden, patients with delirium must be considered 'core business' for 21st century hospitals. We propose that the principles of care outlined by the Future Hospital Commission report provide an ideal blueprint for effective, evidence-based delirium prevention and management. In this context, we outline practical advice for clinicians to improve standards of care for patients with delirium in hospitals. Because negative cultural attitudes, coupled with a lack of ownership towards this highly complex group, remain a major challenge, we consider novel educational interventions that empower the multidisciplinary team. Further, improved outcomes for patients with delirium are likely to translate to wider benefits for the hospital population at large.

Healthcare systems worldwide face the challenge of recognising and improving safety, timeliness, quality and productivity. The authors describe how the COM-B model, developed by Michie et al in 2011 to explain and change criminal behaviour, is useful in identifying what skills and capabilities healthcare providers require to improve their systems. These skills include the intellectual capability to understand, design and improve healthcare processes; the opportunity to do this in their daily work; the motivation to do this - in particular recognising the reasons not to change; and finally unlearning the behaviours based on historical system beliefs that are now invalid. Individual self-awareness and organisational leadership are required to give staff the time and resources to reflect, experiment and learn.