Identifying Information Resources for Patients in the Intensive Care Unit and Their Families

BACKGROUND Providing information to patients in intensive care units and their families is challenging. Patients often are admitted unexpectedly and experience stress and uncertainty. One source of stress has been identified as unclear, uncoordinated, or inconsistent communication and information. Despite the need for information, no centrally located, easily accessible, standardized intensive care unit education content exists. OBJECTIVE To identify educational content for patients in the intensive care unit and their families across 4 different hospitals, develop a general content database, and organize the general content into a framework for education of patients and their families. METHODS Educational content for patients in the intensive care units of 4 participating hospitals was collected and a gap analysis was performed. RESULTS Key content format and categories were identified. Educational content was organized into an information pathway divided into 3 phases: intensive care unit arrival; understanding the intensive care unit and partnering in care; and intensive care unit transitions. The gap analysis revealed substantial variation in content format and categories. CONCLUSIONS Structuring a digital learning center using different stages of the patient’s stay in the intensive care unit and placing resources in the context of an information pathway can help coordinate education for these patients and their families, and creates a consistent communication guide for clinicians as well. The optimal digital format should be considered in designing the learning center.

Development of the DGQ role bundle model of the Q occupations

Purpose Today’s generations face the effect that knowledge is no more usable for decades or even centuries. The pace of change as well as its profoundness has reached levels that cause massive changes in companies, but also whole societies. Some call this phenomenon the 4th industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. Others use the term “digital transformation”. Does this mean that quality managers are becoming obsolete soon? How do the Quality occupations adopt? Which changes need to be accomplished in the field of Quality occupations to provide sustainable competencies for future employees? What tasks and functions need to be carried out? And how can these tasks be defined on a universal basis that fits for different kind of branches as well as small and big companies? Design/methodology/approach Based on Abbotts “System of Professions”, the development of a transformation concept for Quality occupations is carried out. The purpose of this paper is to define basic professional positions in the field of Quality Engineering regarding quality assurance (QA) and quality management (QM) as well as from an operative to a strategic level. Tasks and responsibilities of todays and future businesses models are clustered and enhanced or specified. In a survey, which included 389 executive managers in Germany, the German Association of Quality elevated those jurisdictions and their competences of QA and QM professionals. The results are used to define the new role bundle model for Quality occupations in Germany. Findings The innovative and sustainable role bundle model offers defined Quality occupations for future business models needed for the 4th digital revolution. Thereby, not every role has to be taken by a separate employee in a business organisation. By offering different kind of clusters, the role bundle model helps to create agile role profiles regarding the actual business situation and its size. This way, tasks and jurisdictions within the business organisation can be adapted fast to the changes of the business organisation. Originality/value The innovative concept is based on two success criteria: the creation of Quality occupations according to the changes of digital transformation and a survey involving more than 350 German executive managers in the field of Quality. Based on the results, a role bundle model for Quality occupations is designed that helps to coordinate education programmes at universities and professional trainings in Germany.

Accountability of school networks

Quality education is of major public and private interest and, understandably, considerable effort is paid to the quality of schools and improvement of the level of education in society. Many governments recognize the limitations of centralized policy in motivating school improvement and turn to ‘network governance’ to coordinate school systems. Relying on school-to-school collaboration to coordinate education systems has far-reaching consequences for existing accountability structures, most of which were developed to support hierarchical control of individual school quality. This paper reflects on the accountability of networks of schools and on appropriate arrangements to improve the effectiveness of partnerships; our contribution starts with unpicking the question of ‘who is accountable to whom and for what’ in a network of schools? We discuss some common problems in the accountability of networks and describe frameworks to evaluate network-level outcomes and functioning. Examples from the accountability of Multi-Academy Trusts in England are included to contextualize our contribution.

EDUCATION AND SUPPORT NETWORKS FOR ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH INTERVENTIONS

The aim of Working Group 5 is to develop and coordinate education and support networks for individuals and organizations undertaking or using assessment of health interventions and to identify needs in the field and assist in the establishment of new provisions.

Effectiveness of a Cephalosporin Education Program —A Pharmacy Education Program

In October, 1977, a cephalosporin drug-use review and an educational program were initiated to maximize savings in the pharmacy budget at UCSF and to revise the formulary to include only one parenteral cephalosporin. The results of the drug-use review were presented to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee where our proposal for an education campaign to encourage appropriate dosing of cefazolin was approved. An explanatory document comparing cephalosporin costs and equivalency was developed for hospital-wide distribution. Pharmacy staffs were informed of program objectives to coordinate education efforts. Physician education was undertaken via document and personal contact with pharmacy personnel. A drug-use review one month after institution of the cephalosporin education program showed marked changes in physician prescribing habits, with greater impact on services where pharmacists were members of the medical rounding team. A change to appropriate dosage prescribing of cefazolin resulted in significant cost savings to the pharmacy budget. These findings resulted in formulary revision to cefazolin as the single cephalosporin available at UCSF. Because cefazolin is available from more than one manufacturer, we were able to obtain a lower bid price the following year, thus realizing an additional cost savings.