The aim of this study was to describe patients' experiences of, and preferences for, surgical wound care discharge education and how these experiences predicted their ability to self-manage their surgical wounds. A telephone survey of 270 surgical patients was conducted across two hospitals two weeks after discharge. Patients preferred verbal (n = 255, 94.8%) and written surgical wound education (n = 178, 66.2%) from medical (n = 229, 85.4%) and nursing staff (n = 211, 78.7%) at discharge. The most frequent education content that patients received was information about follow-up appointments (n = 242, 89.6%) and who to contact in the community with wound care concerns (n = 233, 86.6%). Using logistic regression, patients who perceived that they participated in surgical wound care decisions were 6.5 times more likely to state that they were able to manage their wounds at home. Also, patients who agreed that medical and/or nursing staff discussed wound pain management were 3.1 times more likely to report being able to manage their surgical wounds at home. Only 40% (107/270) of patients actively participated in wound-related decision-making during discharge education. These results uncovered patient preferences, which could be used to optimise discharge education practices. Embedding patient participation into clinical workflows may enhance patients' self-management practices once home.
Background: Non-technical errors, such as insufficient communication or leadership, are a major cause of medical failures during trauma resuscitation. Research on staffing variation among trauma teams on teamwork is still in their infancy. In this study, the extent of variation in trauma team staffing was assessed. Our hypothesis was that there would be a high variation in trauma team staffing. Methods: Trauma team composition of consecutive resuscitations of injured patients were evaluated using videos. All trauma team members that where part of a trauma team during a trauma resuscitation were identified and classified during a one-week period. Other outcomes were number of unique team members, number of new team members following the previous resuscitation and new team members following the previous resuscitation in the same shift (Day, Evening, Night). Results: All thirty-two analyzed resuscitations had a unique trauma team composition and 101 unique members were involved. A mean of 5.71 (SD 2.57) new members in teams of consecutive trauma resuscitations was found, which was two-third of the trauma team. Mean team members present during trauma resuscitation was 8.38 (SD 1.43). Most variation in staffing was among nurses (32 unique members), radiology technicians (22 unique members) and anesthetists (19 unique members). The least variation was among trauma surgeons (3 unique members) and ER physicians (3 unique members). Conclusion: We found an extremely high variation in trauma team staffing during thirty-two consecutive resuscitations at our level one trauma center which is incorporated in an academic teaching hospital. Further research is required to explore and prevent potential negative effects of staffing variation in trauma teams on teamwork, processes and patient related outcomes.
Aims: Prescribing medication is a complex process that, when done inappropriately, can lead to adverse drug events, resulting in patient harm and hospital admissions. Worldwide cost is estimated at 42 billion USD each year. Despite several efforts in the past years, medication-related harm has not declined. The aim was to determine whether a prescriber-focussed participatory action intervention, initiated by a multidisciplinary pharmacotherapy team, is able to reduce the number of in-hospital prescriptions containing ≥1 prescribing error (PE), by identifying and reducing challenges in appropriate prescribing. Methods: A prospective single-centre before- and after study was conducted in an academic hospital in the Netherlands. Twelve clinical wards (medical, surgical, mixed and paediatric) were recruited. Results: Overall, 321 patients with a total of 2978 prescriptions at baseline were compared with 201 patients with 2438 prescriptions postintervention. Of these, m456 prescriptions contained ≥1 PE (15.3%) at baseline and 357 prescriptions contained ≥1 PEs (14.6%) postintervention. PEs were determined in multidisciplinary consensus. On some study wards, a trend toward a decreasing number of PEs was observed. The intervention was associated with a nonsignificant difference in PEs (incidence rate ratio 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.83–1.10), which was unaltered after correction. The most important identified challenges were insufficient knowledge beyond own expertise, unawareness of guidelines and a heavy workload. Conclusion: The tailored interventions developed with and implemented by stakeholders led to a statistically nonsignificant reduction in inappropriate in-hospital prescribing after a 6-month intervention period. Our prescriber-focussed participatory action intervention identified challenges in appropriate in-hospital prescribing on prescriber- and organizational level.
MULTIFILE
