Quality Improvement Zone

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Paul BataldanHospital discharge is a complex and challenging process for healthcare professionals, patients, and carers. Effective discharge planning and communication provides an...

High quality post diagnostic support (PDS) in dementia remains a national1and local priority area. The diagnostic and PDS pathway was process mapped across Dumfries & Galloway. This revealed that people living with dementia are not receiving...

AHA Herlev is inspired by a project at fellow Copenhagen hospital, which has demonstrated that an increased attention on patients with ileus can improve survival. The focus included reduced time to surgery, optimizing the patient before surgery...

To improve number of optimal blood glucose episodes (4-11mmol/L) per 100 blood glucose tests in two surgical wards by 20% by June 2017.The National Diabetes Inpatient Audit 2016 showed that 1 in 6 hospitalized patients have diabetes. About 38% (2...

In 2015/16 Sickness absence costs the Belfast Trust £30,500,000 (based on ‘time-lost’ data) with musculoskeletal (MSK) absence alone costing £6,000,000. The project is focussed on one directorate with 3,500 staff across a wide range of clinical...

The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) provides unscheduled (Emergency) and scheduled transport (Patient Transport Service) to patients across Scotland. The Patient Transport Service (PTS) provides ambulances to patients who need support to reach...

Dealing with Violence is often considered an integral part of work within Acute Psychiatric In-Patient units. High levels of violence on wards are directly linked to staff well-being and absenteeism. Violence creates negative experiences and...

Admission to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit carries a psychological burden for children and their families which can significantly impact their well being and potentially cause harm. In PICU our aim is to foster a patient and family-centered...

Preoperative Assessment of patients prior to surgery is time consuming, but failure to recognize important comorbidities may increase perioperative risk significantly, and cause last minute cancellations, i.e. a waste of resources .Project Aim:All...

Challenge: Good medical care does not equate to a good patient experience. 40 percent of complaints received from service users regarding our service centred around bottle necks in the system, poor communication and staff attitudes. It was...

It was recognised that there had been an increase in the number of falls within station 2, a busy acute receiving and elective vascular surgery ward in University Hospital Ayr. Our patients have multiple co-morbidities and complex needs. This...

Harm from Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is recognised to cut across boundaries and specialities in both primary and secondary care.Poor outcomes associated with AKI include:•Extremely high mortality rates (more than 20% of patients with AKI will die...

Ward B2 within the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre (BWoSCC), began implementing all eight original aspects of Structured Response in January 2016 and despite a number of interventions had been unable to increase compliance to 95%. This...

AIM: Introducing checklist in the delivery ward; 100 % of deliveries by 21 the of May 2017,We wanted to improve selection of women on admission to the delivery ward, and try to improve collaboration and communication between midwifes and doctors...

Adverse drug events occur in up to 20% of patients following hospital discharge1 and contribute to avoidable readmissions.2 Accurate communication of medicines at discharge is a vital aspect of safe, quality patient care to reduce the risk of harm...

Developing a Safety Plan/Crisis Plan is usually part of ongoing treatment in the community for mental health difficulties to improve safety/reduce risk. They should be developed outside of a crisis, be brief, in one’s own words, easy to read &...

Acute kidney injury (AKI, a sudden decline in renal function of at least 50% from baseline, or creatinine rise ≥26µmol/l)1 is common, affecting up to 20% of patients in hospital and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality As it is a...

The aim of the project is to improve the reliability of delivering safe care for patients on high risk medications and diabetic patients were introduced ntothe care bundle from January 2017. Five dental practices in NHS Fife are involved in...

Chronic pain can result in unemployment, relationship breakdown, mental health problems and a life dominated by healthcare. Effective treatment is ‘pain management’ delivered mainly by clinical psychologists and physiotherapists in both group and...

Children with complex medical and developmental problems are at higher risk of unexpected deterioration and need for rapid clinical assessment or hospital admission, most often as a result of respiratory infection. This often results in frequent,...

When it comes to quality and safety it is usually the system, the hospital staff, bureaucrats, politicians or the media who decides on what matters to the patient and their relatives. Traditionally, these are also the ones who decides on, which...

The Danish Health Board defines quality indicators for different disease categories that should be met at the hospitals in Denmark. The Ob./Gyn. Department at Zealand University Hospital reports to 5 clinical databases. During the last years, we...

Usually we focus on the negative side of what happens in healthcare, looking for errors, mistakes and lapses. Excellence reporting is a system and philosophy that aims to focus on the positive side instead. It is opposite and yet complimentary...

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and leading cause of serious long-term disability among the elderly in Norway (1). Inpatients with acute ischemic stroke, rapid treatment with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) is crucial for a good patient...

Emergencyhospitaladmissionisdistressingforpatientsandcarers,itisassociatedwithagreaterriskofmortalityandlonger-termmorbidityandisexpensivetothehealthcaresystem.Increasingly...

Morbidity and mortality from liver disease has been rising exponentially for decades in the UK and in particular in the West of Scotland. Causes include awareness of liver disease and its complications and timely treatment of acute presentation....

Delirium is common in patients presenting with falls and fracture. Evidence suggests rates as high as 30-60% of those admitted with hip fracture develop delirium. Delirium is often unrecognised and is associated with poor patient outcomes...

Chest pain is the second most common presenting symptoms in the emergency department (ED) and puts enormous stain on the Norwegian emergency healthcare services. Accelerated discharge pathways for chest pain patients have been successfully...

Initial project focused on deterioration of ward patients prior to Critical Care admission with presumption that areas of improvement would be identified within ward area escalationInitial data collection completed April to November 2016....

The development of a multimodal approach was required to support the gaps identified in the patients journey following Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) from acute hospitals, post-acute rehabilitation services, disability services and life-long care....