New take on the post-take ward round: a quality improvement project undertaken in a district general hospital. 2022

Georgia Kate Galloway, and Sarah Nahin Choudhury
Peterborough City Hospital, Peterborough, UK georgia.galloway@nhs.net.

A patient's first encounter with a consultant clinician, known as the post-take ward round (PTWR), is a pivotal encounter at the start of their hospital journey. It is a chance for a review of history, examination and investigations, formulation of preliminary diagnosis and management plan. High-quality patient care is reliant on effective communication of clinical information between teams, and the PTWR record is an integral part of this handover of information across different clinicians, medical teams and wards.Consensus of consultant opinion allowed for the formation of a standard against which the quality of PTWR documentation could be measured. This project aimed to assess and improve compliance with the devised standard.Following a survey of referrals made to the medical team after the move to electronic record keeping, it was found that important information was being missed from PTWR records. For example, of the 446 records analysed, only 34% had a documented potential discharge date (PDD) and 20% had a documented escalation plan. Analysis showed overall compliance to core criteria was 63%.Several changes within the department of acute medicine were trialled, including the introduction of a checklist, prompt cards for clinical staff to carry and finally the implementation of an electronic form for PTWR records.Over the course of several cycles of data collection, compliance with core criteria improved from 63% to 86%. Most notably, improvement was seen in documentation of social history (42%-87%), frailty score (0%-63%), PDD (41%-81%) and escalation plan (21%-66%).This work demonstrates the value of development of a standard for PTWR documentation, and of a proforma. The actions taken in this hospital may be of benefit to other medical departments.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D011795 Surveys and Questionnaires Collections of data obtained from voluntary subjects. The information usually takes the form of answers to questions, or suggestions. Community Survey,Nonrespondent,Questionnaire,Questionnaires,Respondent,Survey,Survey Method,Survey Methods,Surveys,Baseline Survey,Community Surveys,Methodology, Survey,Nonrespondents,Questionnaire Design,Randomized Response Technique,Repeated Rounds of Survey,Respondents,Survey Methodology,Baseline Surveys,Design, Questionnaire,Designs, Questionnaire,Methods, Survey,Questionnaire Designs,Questionnaires and Surveys,Randomized Response Techniques,Response Technique, Randomized,Response Techniques, Randomized,Survey, Baseline,Survey, Community,Surveys, Baseline,Surveys, Community,Techniques, Randomized Response
D004282 Documentation Systematic organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of specialized information, especially of a scientific or technical nature (From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983). It often involves authenticating or validating information. Documentations
D006769 Hospitals, General Large hospitals with a resident medical staff which provides continuous care to maternity, surgical and medical patients. General Hospital,General Hospitals,Hospital, General
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D057189 Checklist Aid for consistent recording of data such as tasks completed and observations noted. Checklists
D058996 Quality Improvement The attainment or process of attaining a new level of performance or quality. Improvement, Quality,Improvements, Quality,Quality Improvements

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