Outreach - Patient feedback for an integrated virtual ward older person team

Patient information and satisfaction: The ICPOP Outreach team Service is a relatively new concept in patient care delivering Specialist older person care in the home through a virtual ward model. Whilst we continuously informally seek feedback from our clients, there has been no formal engagement to date with our clients to gather information gathered to date about the impact of our service. We conducted an audit between 01/08/23 – 31/08/23 30 service users over age of 65 years including collateral history where needed for those cognitively impaired. Audit standards used: National Inpatient Experience Survey, 2022 audit standards (National Care Experience Programme (NCEP), 2022). The Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives. (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, 2021) Audit standards were examined against the National Inpatient Experience Survey standards in relation to the domains of (1) Timely admission, (2) care received, (3) examinations, diagnostics and treatment, (4) discharge and (5) any other issues identified and /or comments. Audit tool used: We used the reliable established telephone questionnaire which allows for the collection of both subjective and objective data. The audit was led out by CNS (Grace McSweeney) Approval for the audit was sought and approved by the Operational Team Lead (Finola Cronin) Rationale for the audit was discussed and parameters for the audit agreed with the Consultant Geriatricians and the wider team both collectively as part of multi-disciplinary team meetings and individual team member follow up Improved service user information and access for service users The Audit had an overall positive outcome with the only negative finding was that patients did not fully understand what the service was about and either didn’t get clear information prior to being referred or felt they needed better communication in relation to and how the service worked to benefit their recovery The information provided to us by our patients and their families has helped us to identify the need for enhancing how we are communicating with our patients and how best we can do this effectively to ensure a greater understanding. To this end the team worked collaboratively to produce a service information leaflet. This leaflet will act as a vital tool in the promotion of better communication and information Sharing to improve service delivery to benefit the patient. For Health Professionals referring to the service which includes a referral form for completion For Patients and Families It will include: A description of what the outreach service is and how it works A synopsis of the MDT roles The suggested changes from our service user also reminded our team about the importance of communication and to use the feedback we received as part of this audit to strive for continuous improvement of our services. In line with HSE values and our dedication to quality improvement, we will repeat this audit in 6 months to review the impact of the literature produced in addressing the service improvements identified by our clients.