scholarly journals Effectiveness of an Electronic Communication Tool on Transitions in Care From the Intensive Care Unit: Protocol for a Cluster-Specific Pre-Post Trial

10.2196/18675 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. e18675
Author(s):  
Jeanna Parsons Leigh ◽  
Rebecca Brundin-Mather ◽  
Liam Whalen-Browne ◽  
Devika Kashyap ◽  
Khara Sauro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Primary Outcome ◽  
Audit And Feedback ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Transitions In Care ◽  
Post Trial ◽  
The Impact

Background Transitions in care are vulnerable periods in health care that can expose patients to preventable errors due to incomplete or delayed communication between health care providers. Transitioning critically ill patients from intensive care units (ICUs) to other patient care units (PCUs) is particularly risky, due to the high acuity of the patients and the diversity of health care providers involved in their care. Instituting structured documentation to standardize written communication between health care providers during transitions has been identified as a promising means to reduce communication breakdowns. We developed an evidence-informed, computer-enabled, ICU-specific structured tool—an electronic transfer (e-transfer) tool—to facilitate and standardize the composition of written transfer summaries in the ICUs of one Canadian city. The tool consisted of 10 primary sections with a user interface combination of structured, automated, and free-text fields. Objective Our overarching goal is to evaluate whether implementation of our e-transfer tool will improve the completeness and timeliness of transfer summaries and streamline communications between health care providers during high-risk transitions. Methods This study is a cluster-specific pre-post trial, with randomized and staggered implementation of the e-transfer tool in four hospitals in Calgary, Alberta. Hospitals (ie, clusters) were allocated randomly to cross over every 2 months from control (ie, dictation only) to intervention (ie, e-transfer tool). Implementation at each site was facilitated with user education, point-of-care support, and audit and feedback. We will compare transfer summaries randomly sampled over 6 months postimplementation to summaries randomly sampled over 6 months preimplementation. The primary outcome will be a binary composite measure of the timeliness and completeness of transfer summaries. Secondary measures will include overall completeness, timeliness, and provider ratings of transfer summaries; hospital and ICU lengths of stay; and post-ICU patient outcomes, including ICU readmission, adverse events, cardiac arrest, rapid response team activation, and mortality. We will use descriptive statistics (ie, medians and means) to describe demographic characteristics. The primary outcome will be compared within each hospital pre- and postimplementation using separate logistic regression models for each hospital, with adjustment for patient characteristics. Results Participating hospitals were cluster randomized to the intervention between July 2018 and January 2019. Preliminary extraction of ICU patient admission lists was completed in September 2019. We anticipate that evaluation data collection will be completed by early 2021, with first results ready for publication in spring or summer 2021. Conclusions This study will report the impact of implementing an evidence-informed, computer-enabled, ICU-specific structured transfer tool on communication and preventable medical errors among patients transferred from the ICU to other hospital care units. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03590002; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03590002 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/18675

scholarly journals Effectiveness of an Electronic Communication Tool on Transitions in Care From the Intensive Care Unit: Protocol for a Cluster-Specific Pre-Post Trial (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanna Parsons Leigh ◽  
Rebecca Brundin-Mather ◽  
Liam Whalen-Browne ◽  
Devika Kashyap ◽  
Khara Sauro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Primary Outcome ◽  
Audit And Feedback ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Transitions In Care ◽  
Post Trial ◽  
The Impact

BACKGROUND Transitions in care are vulnerable periods in health care that can expose patients to preventable errors due to incomplete or delayed communication between health care providers. Transitioning critically ill patients from intensive care units (ICUs) to other patient care units (PCUs) is particularly risky, due to the high acuity of the patients and the diversity of health care providers involved in their care. Instituting structured documentation to standardize written communication between health care providers during transitions has been identified as a promising means to reduce communication breakdowns. We developed an evidence-informed, computer-enabled, ICU-specific structured tool—an electronic transfer (e-transfer) tool—to facilitate and standardize the composition of written transfer summaries in the ICUs of one Canadian city. The tool consisted of 10 primary sections with a user interface combination of structured, automated, and free-text fields. OBJECTIVE Our overarching goal is to evaluate whether implementation of our e-transfer tool will improve the completeness and timeliness of transfer summaries and streamline communications between health care providers during high-risk transitions. METHODS This study is a cluster-specific pre-post trial, with randomized and staggered implementation of the e-transfer tool in four hospitals in Calgary, Alberta. Hospitals (ie, clusters) were allocated randomly to cross over every 2 months from control (ie, dictation only) to intervention (ie, e-transfer tool). Implementation at each site was facilitated with user education, point-of-care support, and audit and feedback. We will compare transfer summaries randomly sampled over 6 months postimplementation to summaries randomly sampled over 6 months preimplementation. The primary outcome will be a binary composite measure of the timeliness and completeness of transfer summaries. Secondary measures will include overall completeness, timeliness, and provider ratings of transfer summaries; hospital and ICU lengths of stay; and post-ICU patient outcomes, including ICU readmission, adverse events, cardiac arrest, rapid response team activation, and mortality. We will use descriptive statistics (ie, medians and means) to describe demographic characteristics. The primary outcome will be compared within each hospital pre- and postimplementation using separate logistic regression models for each hospital, with adjustment for patient characteristics. RESULTS Participating hospitals were cluster randomized to the intervention between July 2018 and January 2019. Preliminary extraction of ICU patient admission lists was completed in September 2019. We anticipate that evaluation data collection will be completed by early 2021, with first results ready for publication in spring or summer 2021. CONCLUSIONS This study will report the impact of implementing an evidence-informed, computer-enabled, ICU-specific structured transfer tool on communication and preventable medical errors among patients transferred from the ICU to other hospital care units. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03590002; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03590002 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/18675

scholarly journals Ethical and Social Issues for Health Care Providers in the Intensive Care Unit during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan: a Questionnaire Survey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Seino ◽  
Yayoi Aizawa ◽  
Atsushi Kogetsu ◽  
Kazuto Kato
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Moral Distress ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Care Providers

AbstractThis questionnaire-based observational study was conducted in July 2020 with the aim of understanding the ethical and social issues faced by health care providers (HCPs) registered with the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine in intensive care units (ICUs) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. There were 200 questionnaire respondents, and we analyzed the responses of 189 members who had been involved in COVID-19 treatment in ICUs. The ethical and social issues that HCPs recognized during the pandemic were difficulties in the decision-making process with patients’ families, limitations of life-sustaining treatment, lack of palliative care, and inadequate mental support for patients’ families and HCPs. Regarding decision-making on issues of clinical ethics during the pandemic, more than half of the respondents thought they had failed to provide sufficient palliative care to patients and responded that they experienced moral distress. The free-text responses on moral distress revealed issues such as unusual treatment and care, restricted visits, challenging situations for HCPs, and psychological burden. Additionally, 38.1% of respondents experienced episodes of social prejudice or discrimination and 4.7% experienced a shortage of medical resources. Our study result shows that the moral distress of HCPs was caused by difficulties in patient-centered decision-making and insufficient medical care to patients and their families. These were caused mainly by a lack of communication due to the stronger implementation of infection control measures. We believe that it is important to address ethical and social issues during a pandemic in order to provide appropriate medical care and prevent burnout among HCPs.

Reclaiming and Reshaping Life: Patterns of Reconstruction After the Suicide of a Loved One

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 994-1005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dolores Angela Castelli Dransart
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Suicide Survivors ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Life Patterns ◽  
Survivors Of Suicide ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

The objective of this study is to identify patterns (components and processes) of reconstruction of suicide survivors. In-depth interviews were conducted with 50 survivors of suicide in Switzerland. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti and according to the Grounded Theory principles. Survivors of suicide face four major challenges: dealing with the impact of suicide, searching for meaning, clarifying responsibility, and finding a personal style of reaction and coping. The various ways in which survivors fare through the specific processes of the challenges result in various patterns of reconstruction: the vulnerability, transformation, commitment, and hard blow. The unique characteristics and dynamics of each of them are highlighted. Health care providers would benefit from an approach based on the dynamics of the various patterns of reconstruction in providing appropriate support to survivors of suicide.

The Use of and Attitude Towards Telehealth in Rural Communities

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Mauldon
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Routine Practice ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Urban Hospital ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rural Patients

This paper reports on the attitudes of a sample of health care providers towards the use of telehealth to support rural patients and integrate rural primary health and urban hospital care. Telehealth and other information technologies hold the promise of improving the quality of care for people in rural and remote areas and for supporting rural primary health care providers. While seemingly beneficial for rural patients, study participants believed that telehealth remains underused and poorly integrated into their practice. In general, participants thought that telehealth is potentially beneficial but places constraints on their activities, and few actually used it. Published literature usually reports either on the success of telehealth pilot projects or initiatives that are well resourced and do not reflect the constraints of routine practice, or has an international focus limiting its relevance to the Australian context. Because of the paucity of systematic and generalisable research into the effects of the routine use of telehealth to support rural patients, it is unclear why health care professionals choose to provide such services or the costs and benefits they incur in doing so. Research and policy initiatives continue to be needed to identify the impact of telehealth within the context of Australian primary health care and to develop strategies to support its use.

Health Care Providers in War and Armed Conflict: Operational and Educational Challenges in International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, Part I. Historical Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 109-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick M. Burkle ◽  
Adam L. Kushner ◽  
Christos Giannou ◽  
Mary A. Paterson ◽  
Sherry M. Wren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
World Health ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
The Impact

AbstractSince 1945, the reason for humanitarian crises and the way in which the world responds to them has dramatically changed every 10 to 15 years or less. Planning, response, and recovery for these tragic events have often been ad hoc, inconsistent, and insufficient, largely because of the complexity of global humanitarian demands and their corresponding response system capabilities. This historical perspective chronicles the transformation of war and armed conflicts from the Cold War to today, emphasizing the impact these events have had on humanitarian professionals and their struggle to adapt to increasing humanitarian, operational, and political challenges. An unprecedented independent United Nations–World Health Organization decision in the Battle for Mosul in Iraq to deploy to combat zones emergency medical teams unprepared in the skills of decades-tested war and armed conflict preparation and response afforded to health care providers and dictated by International Humanitarian Law and Geneva Convention protections has abruptly challenged future decision-making and deployments. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:109–115)

Visitation in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: Controversy and Compromise

1994 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy E. Page ◽  
Nancy M. Boeing
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Pediatric Intensive Care ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
The Family ◽  
Centered Care ◽  
Family Centered

Much controversy has arisen in the last few decades regarding parental and family visitation in the intensive care setting. The greatest needs of parents while their child is in an intensive care unit include: to be near their child, to receive honest information, and to believe their child is receiving the best care possible. The barriers that exist to the implementation of open visitation mostly are staff attitudes and misconceptions of parental needs. Open visitation has been found in some studies to make the health-care providers’ job easier, decrease parental anxiety, and increase a child’s cooperativeness with procedures. To provide family-centered care in the pediatric intensive care unit, the family must be involved in their child’s care from the day of admission. As health-care providers, the goal is to empower the family to be able to advocate and care for their child throughout and beyond the life crisis of a pediatric intensive care unit admission

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