A Quality Improvement Project to Design a Patient Resource to Empower People to Age and Live Well after Hospital Attendance.

Introduction:

Evidence suggests older patients and their carers who attend urgent care settings are unaware they can self-refer to community and charity services for ongoing support. 

Aim: To use the domains of the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) to design a holistic patient resource that signposts patients, relatives and carers to different services, thereby enabling them to age well or manage changes in ability. 

Method:

The Quality Improvement Project received Trust governance approval (Ulysses no. 8911).  A literature review was undertaken to establish whether there were existing resources and if they had been evaluated.  Community services information covering the CGA domains were collated to create the content.  Oxford Medical Illustration (OMI) were consulted to design the resource. Three Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles were undertaken. 

PDSA cycles 1 and 2 consulted the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and patient feedback group about content and layout with suggested changes made by OMI.  The resource was created as a poster and booklet.

PDSA cycle 3 gathered patient and carer feedback via Microsoft Forms questionnaire to evaluate knowledge of services prior to seeing the resource and perceived ability to seek support following access to the resource. 

Results:

15 responses were collected (9 patients, 6 relatives/carers) for PDSA cycle 3.  Prior to reviewing the resource 60% did not know who to contact if they were functionally deteriorating and 87% did not know who to contact for help if they were caring for someone.  After reviewing the resource 67% said they strongly agreed or agreed that the resource would help them seek support if needed.  Qualitative feedback included ‘excellent’ and ‘useful/great resource.’ 

Conclusion:

This resource demonstrates that patients feel it will empower them to seek support after hospital attendance if required.  The resource has been successfully launched with MDT espresso teaching sessions to promote it with a future aim to spread its use across the Trust.