Day 1 : Poster Presentations (Theme: Patient Safety)
Developing & enhancing utilization of written discharge instructions :a patient safety initiative
Location
Auditorium Pond Side
Start Date
26-1-2013 10:30 AM
Abstract
Background: Discharge instructions (DIs) provide critical information to inpatients and their care takers about post discharge care and management at home. This information enhances post discharge home care, medication compliance and improves patient’s safety which ultimately decreases readmission rate, reduces complications and increase patient’s satisfaction. At our institution DIs were not available initially and verbal instructions were provided to patients at the time of discharge. Some points were written in discharge summaries which were in English language and had many medical terminologies. DIs were developed however its utilization was minimal
Methods: A team was formed representing each specialty and written DIs were developed in the light of literature and were reviewed & approved by Patient Family Education committee and translated in Urdu language. Finally, were printed and were made available in the units. Over the period it was identified that the hard copies were underutilized. Hence, IT solution was explored. Where the entire approved DIs was made available on intranet from where all the staff can print it. This method also did not work, and then this was linked with existing online discharge summaries which is given to all inpatients at the time of discharge. This link was categorized specialty wise and alphabetically for easy access. In order to sustain the project awareness were conducted in each department for about the change, flyers were prepared highlighting the steps of selecting and printing DIs together with discharge summaries and were circulated in every department through emails and presentations were done. Finally a grand open house was organized. All the above activities were done over the period from March to May, 2012.
Results: Utilization of discharge instructions were analyzed with IT support which revealed that within 05 months i.e. from June - October 2012, around 3,304 discharge instructions were provided to inpatients at the time of discharge along with discharge summaries
Conclusions: Effective discharge instructions can improve patient’s outcome and decrease readmissions rate therefore utilization of discharge instructions should be ensured.
Key words: Discharge, Instructions, Patient, Care, Safety
Developing & enhancing utilization of written discharge instructions :a patient safety initiative
Auditorium Pond Side
Background: Discharge instructions (DIs) provide critical information to inpatients and their care takers about post discharge care and management at home. This information enhances post discharge home care, medication compliance and improves patient’s safety which ultimately decreases readmission rate, reduces complications and increase patient’s satisfaction. At our institution DIs were not available initially and verbal instructions were provided to patients at the time of discharge. Some points were written in discharge summaries which were in English language and had many medical terminologies. DIs were developed however its utilization was minimal
Methods: A team was formed representing each specialty and written DIs were developed in the light of literature and were reviewed & approved by Patient Family Education committee and translated in Urdu language. Finally, were printed and were made available in the units. Over the period it was identified that the hard copies were underutilized. Hence, IT solution was explored. Where the entire approved DIs was made available on intranet from where all the staff can print it. This method also did not work, and then this was linked with existing online discharge summaries which is given to all inpatients at the time of discharge. This link was categorized specialty wise and alphabetically for easy access. In order to sustain the project awareness were conducted in each department for about the change, flyers were prepared highlighting the steps of selecting and printing DIs together with discharge summaries and were circulated in every department through emails and presentations were done. Finally a grand open house was organized. All the above activities were done over the period from March to May, 2012.
Results: Utilization of discharge instructions were analyzed with IT support which revealed that within 05 months i.e. from June - October 2012, around 3,304 discharge instructions were provided to inpatients at the time of discharge along with discharge summaries
Conclusions: Effective discharge instructions can improve patient’s outcome and decrease readmissions rate therefore utilization of discharge instructions should be ensured.
Key words: Discharge, Instructions, Patient, Care, Safety