Improving Interdisciplinary Communication on an Academic Hospitalist Service: A Quality Improvement Project.

ABSTRACT: Effective communication is essential for quality patient care, and paging remains among the most common forms of communication despite the introduction of secure texting platforms. The goal of this project was to use quantitative and qualitative analyses of paging to guide improvements in paging best practices. A retrospective analysis of pages sent over a 7-day period was completed, characterizing the volume, content, and effectiveness of pages both preintervention and 3-month postintervention. The content of each page was categorized into laboratories, medications, vital signs, diet, patient assessment/clinical change, pain, or miscellaneous/other. Effectiveness was based on the following five critical elements: (1) two patient identifiers, (2) the sender's name, (3) the sender's callback number, (4) priority or acuity of the page, and (5) patient-care concern. Pages were considered successful if they contained all the five essential elements. The preintervention results guided interventions. Of 3,483 included pages, 1,806 and 1,677 were sent during the preintervention and postintervention periods, respectively. Adherence to all essential paging elements increased from 15.2% to 40% ( p < .001). The largest deficiency was labeling the urgency of a page, which increased from 31.6% to 51.9% ( p < .001). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of pages effectively guided this project to increase the standardization of paging.

Perceptions of incidents and incident reporting among staff nurses in a tertiary Philippine hospital

INTRODUCTION@#The number of injuries and expenses from unsafe delivery of health care has heeded the call for a greater patient safety advocacy. The development of an effective reporting system contributes towards this cause. The study aimed to explore the perceptions of nurses regarding critical incidents and investigate the factors affecting their decision to report a certain event.@*METHODS@#Focus group discussions including 28 nurses working in the service wards of a tertiary hospital, and the data gathered were analyzed using descriptive qualitative approach.@*RESULTS@#Three key themes emerged from the discussions: (1) perceptions of an incident, (2) attitudes, norms, and culture of incident reporting in the workplace, and (3) perceptions and suggestions for management actions and improving the reporting system. The study showed that various factors tend to interplay in the identification of an incident as well as the consideration to perform the behavior.@*DISCUSSION@#The primary practice and education implications focus on changing the workplace culture and proper orientation of the staff, while further research regarding the role of reporting, and appropriate analysis of error reporting among other health care professionals would be recommended.

Resident and nurse perspectives on the use of secure text messaging systems.

BACKGROUND: As hospitals shift away from pagers and towards secure text messaging systems (STMS), limited research exists on the drawbacks of such systems. Preliminary data show that introduction of STMS can lead to a dramatic increase in interruptions, which may contribute to medical errors. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate residents' and nurses' experiences with STMS at a quaternary care children's hospital. DESIGN: This was a qualitative study with focus groups. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants were pediatric residents and nurses at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. INTERVENTION: Focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded by 2 independent coders. Codes were discussed until consensus was reached. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Data was analyzed through a thematic, descriptive content analysis approach. Themes were developed alongside a framework of teamwork, patient safety, and clinician well-being. RESULTS: Three resident focus groups (n = 14) and three nurse focus groups (n = 21) were held. Six themes were identified: (1) STMS can facilitate teamwork through multiple communication modalities and technological features. (2) STMS can negatively impact teamwork by decreasing face-to-face communication and frontline decision-making. (3) STMS can promote patient safety through closed-loop communication and ready access to team members. (4) STMS can negatively impact patient safety through alarm fatigue, interruptions, and miscommunication. (5) STMS can positively impact clinician well-being through satisfaction and relationship building. (6) STMS can negatively impact clinician well-being through increased stress related to communication volume. CONCLUSION: Use of STMS in the hospital setting has many advantages as well as drawbacks. With appropriate guidelines and training designed to mitigate the drawbacks, STMS have the potential to be valuable means of communication for healthcare team members.

Consideration of Usefulness of Leakage Prevention System for Critical Diagnostic Information Transmission.

In our country, overlooking and failing to communicate the results of imaging examinations and pathological examinations to patients is a problem. This is because it affects the prognosis of the patients. With the introduction of this system, the situation improved within six months, so this system was useful. However, there are some things that remain unaddressed even after notification by the system, so human intervention as well as the system is considered necessary.

RadRemind!-an Automated Paging System for Reminding Radiology Residents of Their Roles and Responsibilities.

Tasks which are scheduled at irregular intervals afford greater scheduling flexibility but are also more difficult to remember. Difficulty remembering clinical tasks not only create potential inefficiencies in patient care but were also identified as a source of anxiety among our residents. We implemented RadRemind! an automated system of pager notifications in order to improve patient care and reduce residents' anxiety. RadRemind! utilizes only an external shared APACHE, MySQL, PHP server. A set of CRON jobs activate a PHP script which pulls information from our resident schedule as JSON data. It then identifies the appropriate residents to notify and then sends a cURL request to a web-based paging service to trigger notifications to residents' pagers. Each activation of the script was logged in an SQL database. An anonymous survey assessing multiple aspects of efficacy was sent to residents after 3 months of implementation. Seventeen of 29 residents responded to the survey. Residents reported a mean of 2 successful reminders (defined as responsibilities which had been otherwise forgotten prior to the page notification) in the last month which was found to be statistically significant via one-sample t test (t = 3.3, p < 0.01). Paired t test showed a statistically significant (t = 2.9, p = 0.01) decrease of 2 points in reported anxiety. Repeated measures analysis of variance found a statistically significant variation in reported utility (F(3,16) = 15.9, p < 0.01)) by type of reminder such that reminders for interventional radiology call were found to be more useful than reminders for other tasks. Use of an automated paging system is an effective method of reminding residents of irregularly scheduled responsibilities and is associated with reduced scheduling related anxiety.

Gestión de la comunicación de los pacientes hospitalizados, aislados con sus familias por la COVID-19 / Management of communication between inpatients isolated due to COVID-19 and their families

ANTECEDENTES Y OBJETIVO: La calidad asistencial se ha podido ver afectada por las dimensiones de la pandemia de COVID-19 y el estricto aislamiento hospitalario al que han sido sometidos los pacientes. Por ello, se plantea describir el proceso diseñado para facilitar la comunicación de los pacientes aislados con sus familias, detectar sus necesidades y realizar intervenciones individualizadas. MÉTODO: Estudio cualitativo con metodología de investigación acción, respondiendo al siguiente algoritmo: planificar la acción, diagnóstico de la necesidad e hipótesis-acción; aplicar la acción, creación del grupo de gestores de casos y formación de los miembros; observar la acción, recoger y analizar la información. Durante el mes de abril del 2020. RESULTADOS: Se realizaron 1.754 interacciones que afectaron a 490 pacientes. Los gestores de casos realizaron 767 llamadas dirigidas principalmente a facilitar información sobre el ingreso (71,45%) y cambios de ubicación o funcionamiento de las unidades (18,84%). Recibieron un total de 1.098 llamadas de familiares solicitando: información médica (43,8%), comunicación con los pacientes (18,48%), entrega de enseres personales o gestión de objetos extraviados (12,84%) e información sobre la ubicación del paciente o gestión del alta (10,20%). En el 66% de los casos las llamadas fueron resueltas por los gestores, el 30% fueron derivadas y el 4% fallidas. CONCLUSIONES: La puesta en funcionamiento del grupo de gestores de casos ha contribuido a mejorar la comunicación de los pacientes ingresados y aislados por COVID-19 con sus familias, dando respuesta a las necesidades planteadas, mejorando la calidad asistencial y favoreciendo la humanización en los cuidados

BACKGROUND AND GOAL: Quality of healthcare has been affected by the current dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the strict hospital isolation to which some inpatients have been subjected. Therefore, we propose to describe the process designed to facilitate the communication of inpatients with their families to detect their needs and perform individualized treatments in each case. METHOD: Qualitative study with action research methodology, responding to the following algorithm: plan the action, diagnosis of the need and hypothesis-action; apply the action, creation of the group of case managers and training of the members; observe the action, collect and analyse the information. During the month of April 2020. RESULTS: 1,754 interactions were undertaken, that affected 490 inpatients. Case Managers made 767 calls, to provide information about admissions (71.45%), changes in inpatient location or operation of units (18.84%), among others. One thousand and ninety-eight calls from family members were received requesting medical information (43.8%), to talk to inpatients (18.48%), to deliver personal articles or manage lost objects (12.84%), and seeking information about patient location or medical discharge (10.20%). Sixty-six percent of the requests were solved by Case Managers, 30% were referred on and 4% could not be solved. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of the Case Manager Group contributed to encourage communication of inpatients isolated due to COVID-19 with their families, responding to needs raised, improving quality of care and promoting humanization of care

Smart hospital infrastructure: geomagnetic in-hospital medical worker tracking.

PURPOSE: Location visualization is essential for locating people/objects, improving efficiency, and preventing accidents. In hospitals, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) Beacon, indoor messaging system, and similar methods have generally been used for tracking, with Wi-Fi and BLE being the most common. Recently, nurses are increasingly using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, while shifting. The accuracy when using Wi-Fi or BLE may be affected by interference or multipath propagation. In this research, we evaluated the positioning accuracy of geomagnetic indoor positioning in hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We compared the position measurement accuracy of a geomagnetic method alone, Wi-Fi alone, BLE beacons alone, geomagnetic plus Wi-Fi, and geomagnetic plus BLE in a general inpatient ward, using a geomagnetic positioning algorithm by GiPStech. The existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was used, and 20 additional BLE beacons were installed. Our first experiment compared these methods' accuracy for 8 test routes, while the second experiment verified a combined geomagnetic/BLE beacon method using 3 routes based on actual daily activities. RESULTS: The experimental results demonstrated that the most accurate method was geomagnetic/BLE, followed by geomagnetic/Wi-Fi, and then geomagnetic alone. DISCUSSION: The geomagnetic method's positioning accuracy varied widely, but combining it with BLE beacons reduced the average position error to approximately 1.2 m, and the positioning accuracy could be improved further. We believe this could effectively target humans (patients) where errors of up to 3 m can generally be tolerated. CONCLUSION: In conjunction with BLE beacons, geomagnetic positioning could be sufficiently effective for many in-hospital localization tasks.

A Call Light Responsiveness Program.

BACKGROUND: Purposeful hourly rounding and information on whiteboards in patients' rooms have been known to reduce use of call lights. PROBLEM: Call light activation was higher than desired. METHODS: This continuous improvement initiative used retrospective data collection (pre-, early- and maintenance postintervention) to assess call light responsiveness. INTERVENTION: A bundled purposeful hourly rounding approach was used. RESULTS: Call light frequency was higher in the early postintervention period than in the preintervention; however, there was no change in the frequency of call lights that extended beyond 5 minutes. In the maintenance postintervention period, compared with the pre- and early postintervention periods, call lights per patient/unit day and call lights extending beyond 5 minutes per patient/unit day decreased (all P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Activation of a bundled purposeful hourly rounding approach was associated with a decrease in all call lights and call lights extending beyond 5 minutes per patient/unit day.

Survey of radiologists and emergency department providers after implementation of a global radiology report categorization system.

PURPOSE: Breakdown in communication of important imaging results threatens patient safety and risks malpractice claims. To facilitate closed-loop communication, our institution developed a unique radiology report categorization (RADCAT) system employing automated alert notification systems. This study aimed to understand users' initial experiences with the RADCAT system and obtain feedback. METHODS: Web-based surveys were distributed to radiologists and emergency department (ED) providers at our hospital system within 1 year of institution-wide RADCAT implementation. Survey designs differed based on clinical setting. Most prompts utilized declarative statements with 5-point agreement Likert scales. Closed-response data was analyzed with descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Response rates among radiologists and ED providers were 59.4% (63/106) and 38.4% (69/211), respectively. 78.0% (46/59) of radiologists and 60.9% (42/69) of ED providers agreed that RADCAT improves patient care. Of radiologists, 84.1% (53/63) agreed that RADCAT design is intuitive, and 57.6% (34/59) agreed that RADCAT improves efficiency. Of ED providers, 69.6% (48/69) agreed that RADCAT appropriately differentiates urgent and non-urgent findings, and 65.2% (45/69) agreed that auto-population of discharge documents with imaging results containing follow-up recommendations protects them from liability. Only 35.6% (21/59) of radiologists and 21.7% (15/69) of ED providers agreed that RADCAT implementation decreased reading room visits by ordering providers. Open-response feedback showed that some ED providers find RADCAT too complex while some radiologists desire improved transparency regarding imaging study communication status. CONCLUSION: Since its implementation, RADCAT has been well received among radiologists and ED providers with agreement that it improves patient care and effectively distinguishes and communicates important imaging findings.

Completeness and quality of text paging for subspecialty consult requests.

It is unclear whether previously developed frameworks for effective consultation apply to requests initiated by alphanumeric text page. We assessed a random sample of 210 text paged consult requests for communication of previously described 'essential elements' for effective consultation: reason for consult, level of urgency and requester contact information. Overall page quality was evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale. Over 90% of text paged consult requests included contact information and reason for consult; 14% indicated level of urgency. In ordinal logistic regression, reason for consult was most strongly associated with quality (OR 22.4; 95% CI 8.1 to 61.7), followed by callback number (OR 6.2; 95% CI 0.8 to 49.5), caller's name (OR 5.0; 95% CI 1.9 to 13.1) and level of urgency (OR 3.3; 95% CI 1.6 to 6.7). Results suggest that text paged consult requests often include most informational elements, and that urgency, often missing, may not be as 'essential' for text pages as it was once thought to be.

Implementation and Impact of a Comprehensive Radiology Report Categorization System on Communication of Important Results.

PURPOSE: Effective communication of important imaging results is critical to patient care but difficult to accomplish efficiently. To improve communication at their institution, the authors introduced a radiology report categorization system (RADCAT) that organizes diagnostic imaging reports and uses automated communication systems. The study objectives were to (1) describe RADCAT's design, (2) evaluate its implementation for appropriate imaging, and (3) evaluate the communication of important, nonurgent results with recommended follow-up. METHODS: This retrospective study was performed in a multihospital adult and pediatric tertiary referral academic health system. The intervention, a radiology report categorization system with five levels of acuity and IT-supported communication workflows, was globally implemented in November 2017. The primary outcomes were the successful implementation of RADCAT to appropriate diagnostic imaging reports and the successful communication of important, nonurgent results with recommended follow-up to ordering providers and patients by the radiology quality assurance team. RESULTS: Over 18 months after implementation, 740,625 radiology reports were categorized under the RADCAT system, with 42%, 28%, and 30% from the emergency department, inpatient, and outpatient settings, respectively. A random selection of 100 studies from the 23,718 total reports without RADCAT categorization identified 4 diagnostic radiology reports that erroneously lacked RADCAT grading. In 2019, of the 38,701 studies with nonurgent imaging follow-up recommendations, 38,692 (nearly 100.0%) were successfully communicated to providers or patients on the basis of quality assurance data. CONCLUSIONS: A comprehensive radiology report categorization system was successfully implemented across a multihospital adult and pediatric health system, demonstrating reliable communication of imaging results with recommendations for nonacute imaging follow-up.

Research: Replacing Overhead Paging with Smartphones to Reduce Hospital Noise.

Hospital noise is associated with adverse effects on patients and staff. Communication through overhead paging is a major contributor to hospital noise. Replacing overhead paging with smartphones through a clinical mobility platform has the potential to reduce transitory noises in the hospital setting, though this result has not been described. The current study evaluated the impact of replacing overhead paging with a smartphone-based clinical mobility platform on transitory noise levels in a labor and delivery unit. Transitory noises were defined as sound levels greater than 10 dB above baseline, as recorded by a sound level meter. Prior to smartphone implementation, 77% of all sound levels at or above 60 dB were generated by overhead paging. Overhead pages occurred at an average rate of 3.17 per hour. Following smartphone implementation, overhead pages were eliminated and transitory noises decreased by two-thirds (P < 0.001). The highest recorded sound level decreased from 76.54 to 57.34 dB following implementation. The percent of sounds that exceeded the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and International Noise Council decreased from 31.2% to 0.2% following implementation (P < 0.001). Replacement of overhead paging with a clinical mobility platform that utilized smartphones was associated with a significant reduction in transitory noise. Clinical mobility implementation, as part of a noise reduction strategy, may be effective in other inpatient settings.

¿Qué hemos hecho en nuestra UCI de Anestesia para mantener la comunicación en la pandemia? / What have we done in our anesthesia ICU to maintain communication in the pandemic?

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Schiavonia Hospital response to COVID-19 outbreak: a first single-center experience.

INTRODUCTION: On 21 February 2020, Schiavonia Hospital (SH) detected the first 2 cases of COVID-19 in Veneto Region. As a result of the underlying concomitant spread of infection, SH had to rearrange the clinical services in terms of structural changes to the building, management of spaces, human resources and supplies, in order to continue providing optimal care to the patients and staff safety. The aim of this article is to describe how SH was able to adjust its services coping with the epidemiological stages of the pandemic. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Three periods can be identified; in each one the most important organizational modifications are analyzed (hospital activities, logistical changes, communication, surveillance on HCW). RESULTS: The first period, after initial cases' identification, was characterized by the hospital isolation. In the second period the hospital reopened and it was divided into two completely separated areas, named COVID-19 and COVID-free, to prevent intra-hospital contamination. The last period was characterized by the re-organization of the facility as the largest COVID Hospital in Veneto, catching exclusively COVID-19 patients from the surrounding areas. CONCLUSIONS: SH changed its organization three times in less than two months. From the point of view of the Medical Direction of the Hospital the challenges had been many but it allowed to consolidate an organizational model which could answer to health needs during the emergency situation.