Title : Improvement in general surgery handover
Abstract:
Many UK hospitals are now incorporating online platforms to house Patient information & Data. This includes Diagnoses, past medical history, blood results, and outstanding tasks. One notable system that is being used is known as Nerve Centre. Nerve Centre is currently being used in over 40 healthcare trusts and in over 100 hospitals across the UK, specifically in the East & West Midlands. To improve Surgical outcomes in patients, we have created a QIP/Audit that will help utilise the functions of Nerve Centre better to improve efficiency during ward rounds, ensure proper documented handovers are preformed, and to stop any outstanding tasks from being missed. Overall, this will improve communication between teams, improve patient safety and ensure good continuity of care. We plan to create in the standardised Handover, the relevant diagnosis, bloods and outstanding tasks. We will complete this for each patient and utilise this sheet during ward rounds. We have created a Pre-change and post-change evaluation form to see the significance of this.Our initial aim is to create a pre-QIP Survey encompassing the various components that make an effective Handover sheet; and gain an initial perspective of the Surgical department. This will be followed by 1 week of further education/posters and 2 months of implanting the handover change. Finally, we hope to re-audit once complete demonstrate our findings to our team/nationally. We believe surgical handovers to be a vital factor in providing safe, good patient care and this QIP/Audit’s aim is to primarily improve patient safety outcomes & improve efficiency during ward rounds across all healthcare professionals and settings.
