Increasing Awareness of Palliative Medicine With the Emergency Department: A Quality Improvement Project

2021 ◽  
pp. 104990912110218
Author(s):  
Carolina De Elia ◽  
Phyllis Macchio ◽  
Wardah Khan ◽  
Lindsay Perigini ◽  
Alan Kaell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Department ◽  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Educational Intervention ◽  
Palliative Medicine ◽  
Hospice Care ◽  
Quality Improvement Project ◽  
Treatment Team ◽  
Improvement Project ◽  
Service Training ◽  
Seriously Ill Patients

Palliative medicine can be essential in helping to align patients’ goals of care with their treatment team. Referrals for palliative medicine are more advantageous when initiated in the emergency department as this is the first point of contact for seriously ill patients being admitted to the hospital. This paper highlights a quality improvement project initiated to address knowledge gaps in palliative medicine with emergency department (ED) staff and to increase referrals for palliative medicine from the ED. The palliative medicine staff held an in-service training with the ED staff which focused on defining palliative medicine and the importance of early consults when the patient presents in the ED. Palliative medicine staff also highlighted the differences between palliative medicine and hospice care, when and how to initiate a consult for palliative medicine, as well as how to contact the palliative medicine division. The results showed that after this educational intervention the number of palliative medicine consults increased three-fold. Before the educational intervention, monthly averages for palliative medicine were 6 and after rose to 18.9 per month.

scholarly journals Assessing Nurses’ Knowledge of Noise in the Intensive Care Unit: An Educational Intervention Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Fortes
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Critical Care ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Educational Intervention ◽  
Quality Improvement Project ◽  
Minimal Risk ◽  
Improvement Project ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Nurses Knowledge

Noise in the intensive care unit (ICU) has been studied for over thirty years, but it continues to be a significant problem and a top complaint among patients. Staff members are now reporting detrimental health effects from excessive noise. One of the significant factors of inadequate noise control in the ICU is that nurses have insufficient awareness regarding the hospital noise issue and its negative impact on health status. The level of knowledge of clinical staff on the topic of noise is not known. A quality improvement project to explore noise in the ICU could facilitate better understanding of the phenomenon and formulation of new ways to continue to reduce noise at a community hospital in Massachusetts. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate nurses’ knowledge of the potentially harmful effects of noise on patients as well as on nurses, to identify opportunities for improvement of the environment, and to conduct an educational intervention aimed at reducing noise in the intensive care unit. The methodology for this project included a pre-test, followed by an educational session, and completion of a post-test. The participants included registered nurse staff members in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the Critical Care Unit (CCU). Exclusion criteria included staff members who are not registered nurses. The project posed minimal risk. No identifying or biographical data was collected, and results included analysis of aggregate data. Descriptive statistics were used to assist with analysis. Results were disseminated to the staff of the ICU and CCU, posted on a bulletin board in the critical care area, presented as a poster presentation at the Spring RIC MSN Symposium, and available as a manuscript on the RIC Digital Commons.

scholarly journals Nurses’ Knowledge on Delirium Prevention and Detection in Hospitalized Adults: A Quality Improvement Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayla Deery
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Educational Intervention ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Hospital Setting ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
Measurement Model ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Quality Improvement Project ◽  
Improvement Project ◽  
Nurses Knowledge

Delirium, recognized as a medical and psychological emergency, is a symptom of an acute medical condition. Despite the prevalence of delirium in the hospital setting, it continues to be unrecognized, resulting in poor patient outcomes, and exorbitant healthcare cost. Patients with dementia who are chronically ill, as well as patients previously diagnosed with delirium, represent a vulnerable population and require closer surveillance due to their predisposing factors. This quality improvement project goal is to increase nurses’ knowledge and understanding of delirium. This was completed through providing education to medical-surgical nurses on the causes of delirium (predisposing and precipitating factors), prevention, use of the confusion assessment method (CAM) screening tool, and detection of delirium. The change in knowledge was measure through an investigator created, 10-question multiple choice, pretest-posttest measurement model. Of the 58 nurses, nine responded and completed the pretest (N=9, 15.5%), while seven completed the educational intervention posttest (N=7, 12%). Results of the quality improvement project yielded a 22.1% increase in nurses’ knowledge after the educational intervention. Despite the low participation rate, this project revealed a positive correlation between the educational intervention and nurses’ knowledge.

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