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Medication Safety Officers Society 3324 Members Strong A society of healthcare professionals dedicated to improving medication safety in healthcare organizations |
People with an intellectual disability form a sizeable minority group. Estimates of prevalence vary, depending on criteria used, but it is thought that intellectual disability affects around 1%–2% of the world population.1 2 Intellectual disability is present when the following three criteria are met: a significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, or to learn and apply new skills (impaired intelligence); a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning); and beginning before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development.3 4
Health inequitiesPeople with an intellectual disability experience stark health inequities. Understanding the causes of these inequities is important in making steps towards addressing them. The ‘Learning from Lives and Deaths’ (LeDeR) programme, which has investigated deaths of people with an intellectual disability and autistic people in England since 2016,5 contributes towards achieving such understanding....
The great art of learning is to understand but little at a time. —John Locke
Clinical debriefing (CD) is rapidly gaining traction as a valuable activity. CD is usually conducted as a guided exploration and reflection of clinical events in an attempt to bridge the gap between experience and understanding, with the ultimate aim of influencing future practice.1 CD has the potential to improve outcomes for staff, teams, patients and systems.2 3 The evidence for CD exists and continues to grow; benefits range from changes in staff attitudes4 to favourable outcomes following cardiac arrest.5 Despite this, some clinicians have been sceptical about the impact of CD, and there are various barriers which may limit implementation. These include lack of clear purpose, actual or perceived lack of time, lack of experienced debriefers and cultural resistance to change.6 Our...
Surgical complications represent a considerable proportion of hospital expenses. Therefore, interventions that improve surgical outcomes could reduce healthcare costs.
ObjectiveEvaluate the effects of implementing surgical outcome monitoring using control charts to reduce hospital bed-days within 30 days following surgery, and hospital costs reimbursed for this care by the insurer.
DesignNational, parallel, cluster-randomised SHEWHART trial using a difference-in-difference approach.
Setting40 surgical departments from distinct hospitals across France.
Participants155 362 patients over the age of 18 years, who underwent hernia repair, cholecystectomy, appendectomy, bariatric, colorectal, hepatopancreatic or oesophageal and gastric surgery were included in analyses.
InterventionAfter the baseline assessment period (2014–2015), hospitals were randomly allocated to the intervention or control groups. In 2017–2018, the 20 hospitals assigned to the intervention were provided quarterly with control charts for monitoring their surgical outcomes (inpatient death, intensive care stay, reoperation and severe complications). At each site, pairs, consisting of one surgeon and a collaborator (surgeon, anaesthesiologist or nurse), were trained to conduct control chart team meetings, display posters in operating rooms, maintain logbooks and design improvement plans.
Main outcomesNumber of hospital bed-days per patient within 30 days following surgery, including the index stay and any acute care readmissions related to the occurrence of major adverse events, and hospital costs reimbursed for this care per patient by the insurer.
ResultsPostintervention, hospital bed-days per patient within 30 days following surgery decreased at an adjusted ratio of rate ratio (RRR) of 0.97 (95% CI 0.95 to 0.98; p<0.001), corresponding to a 3.3% reduction (95% CI 2.1% to 4.6%) for intervention hospitals versus control hospitals. Hospital costs reimbursed for this care per patient by the insurer significantly decreased at an adjusted ratio of cost ratio (RCR) of 0.99 (95% CI 0.98 to 1.00; p=0.01), corresponding to a 1.3% decrease (95% CI 0.0% to 2.6%). The consumption of a total of 8910 hospital bed-days (95% CI 5611 to 12 634 bed-days) and 2 615 524 (95% CI 32 366 to 5 405 528) was avoided in the intervention hospitals postintervention.
ConclusionsUsing control charts paired with indicator feedback to surgical teams was associated with significant reductions in hospital bed-days within 30 days following surgery, and hospital costs reimbursed for this care by the insurer.
Trial registration numberTo evaluate rates, risk factors and outcomes of delayed diagnosis of seven serious paediatric conditions.
MethodsThis was a retrospective, cross-sectional study of children under 21 years old visiting 13 community and tertiary emergency departments (EDs) with appendicitis, bacterial meningitis, intussusception, mastoiditis, ovarian torsion, sepsis or testicular torsion. Delayed diagnosis was defined as having a previous ED encounter within 1 week in which the condition was present per case review. Patients with delayed diagnosis were each matched to four control patients without delay by condition, facility and age. Conditional logistic regression models evaluated risk factors of delay. Complications were compared between by delayed diagnosis status.
ResultsAmong 14 972 children, delayed diagnosis occurred in 1.1% (range 0.3% for sepsis to 2.6% for ovarian torsion). Hispanic (matched OR 2.71, 95% CI 1.69 to 4.35) and non-Hispanic black (OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.21 to 4.79) race/ethnicity were associated with delayed diagnosis, whereas Asian and other race/ethnicity were not. Public (OR 2.21, 95% CI 1.42 to 3.44) and other (OR 2.43, 95% CI 1.50 to 3.93) insurance were also associated with delay. Non-English language was associated with delay (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.69). Abnormal vital signs were associated with a lower likelihood of delay (OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.25). In an adjusted model, Hispanic race/ethnicity, other insurance, abnormal vital signs and complex chronic conditions (CCCs) were associated with delay. The odds of a complication were 2.5-fold (95% CI 1.6 to 3.8) higher among patients with a delay.
ConclusionDelayed diagnosis was uncommon across 13 regional EDs but was more likely among children with Hispanic ethnicity, CCCs or normal vital signs. Delays were associated with a higher risk of complications.
High-quality antenatal care is important for ensuring optimal birth outcomes and reducing risks of maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the usual provision of antenatal care, with much care shifting to remote forms of provision. We aimed to characterise what quality would look like for remote antenatal care from the perspectives of those who use, provide and organise it.
MethodsThis UK-wide study involved interviews and an online survey inviting free-text responses with: those who were or had been pregnant since March 2020; maternity professionals and managers of maternity services and system-level stakeholders. Recruitment used network-based approaches, professional and community networks and purposively selected hospitals. Analysis of interview transcripts was based on the constant comparative method. Free-text survey responses were analysed using a coding framework developed by researchers.
FindingsParticipants included 106 pregnant women and 105 healthcare professionals and managers/stakeholders. Analysis enabled generation of a framework of the domains of quality that appear to be most relevant to stakeholders in remote antenatal care: efficiency and timeliness; effectiveness; safety; accessibility; equity and inclusion; person-centredness and choice and continuity. Participants reported that remote care was not straightforwardly positive or negative across these domains. Care that was more transactional in nature was identified as more suitable for remote modalities, but remote care was also seen as having potential to undermine important aspects of trusting relationships and continuity, to amplify or create new forms of structural inequality and to create possible risks to safety.
ConclusionsThis study offers a provisional framework that can help in structuring thinking, policy and practice. By outlining the range of domains relevant to remote antenatal care, this framework is likely to be of value in guiding policy, practice and research.
Clinical debriefing (CD) improves teamwork and patient care. It is implemented across a range of clinical contexts, but delivery and structure are variable. Furthermore, terminology to describe CD is also inconsistent and often ambiguous. This variability and the lack of clear terminology obstructs understanding and normalisation in practice. This review seeks to examine the contextual factors relating to different CD approaches with the aim to differentiate them to align with the needs of different clinical contexts.
MethodsArticles describing CD were extracted from Medline, CINAHL, ERIC, PubMed, PsychINFO and Academic Search Complete. Empirical studies describing CD that involved two or more professions were eligible for inclusion. Included papers were charted and analysed using the Who-What-When-Where-Why-How model to examine contextual factors which were then used to develop categories of CD. Factors relating to what prompted debriefing and when debriefing occurred were used to differentiate CD approaches.
ResultsForty-six papers were identified. CD was identified as either prompted or routine, and within these overarching categories debriefing was further differentiated by the timing of the debrief. Prompted CD was either immediate or delayed and routine CD was postoperative or end of shift. Some contextual factors were unique to each category while others were relatively heterogeneous. These categories help clarify the alignment between the context and the intention of CD.
ConclusionsThe proposed categories offer a practical way to examine and discuss CD which may inform decisions about implementation. By differentiating CD according to relevant contextual factors, these categories may reduce confusion which currently hinders discourse and implementation. The findings from this review promote context-specific language and a shift away from conceptions of CD that embody a one-size-fits-all approach.
To identify factors acting as barriers or enablers to the process of healthcare consent for people with intellectual disability and to understand how to make this process equitable and accessible.
Data sourcesDatabases: Embase, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science and CINAHL. Additional articles were obtained from an ancestral search and hand-searching three journals.
Eligibility criteriaPeer-reviewed original research about the consent process for healthcare interventions, published after 1990, involving adult participants with intellectual disability.
Synthesis of resultsInductive thematic analysis was used to identify factors affecting informed consent. The findings were reviewed by co-researchers with intellectual disability to ensure they reflected lived experiences, and an easy read summary was created.
ResultsTwenty-three studies were included (1999 to 2020), with a mix of qualitative (n=14), quantitative (n=6) and mixed-methods (n=3) studies. Participant numbers ranged from 9 to 604 people (median 21) and included people with intellectual disability, health professionals, carers and support people, and others working with people with intellectual disability. Six themes were identified: (1) health professionals’ attitudes and lack of education, (2) inadequate accessible health information, (3) involvement of support people, (4) systemic constraints, (5) person-centred informed consent and (6) effective communication between health professionals and patients. Themes were barriers (themes 1, 2 and 4), enablers (themes 5 and 6) or both (theme 3).
ConclusionsMultiple reasons contribute to poor consent practices for people with intellectual disability in current health systems. Recommendations include addressing health professionals’ attitudes and lack of education in informed consent with clinician training, the co-production of accessible information resources and further inclusive research into informed consent for people with intellectual disability.
PROSPERO registrationCRD42021290548.
Across the globe, awareness of racial and ethnic health inequities and the need for healthcare systems to address them are growing.1 In many countries, teams working in healthcare institutions are encouraged to stratify quality metrics by race and ethnicity as part of the movement to identify and disrupt health inequities.2 The lack of standard definitions for race and ethnicity and restrictions on how and where these data can be collected make collecting high-quality data challenging. Stratifying quality metrics by race and ethnicity is further challenged by the risk of undermining the core goal of disrupting inequities.1 Although presenting patient data stratified by race and ethnicity helps identify health inequities, such data can also reinforce the belief that differences in health outcomes are caused by biological instead of social and structural factors. The myth that race is a biological construct is dangerous...
