Increasing delivery of an outdoor journey intervention to people with stroke: A feasibility study involving five community rehabilitation teams

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Contrary to recommendations in a national clinical guideline, baseline audits from five community-based stroke rehabilitation teams demonstrated an evidence-practice gap; only 17% of eligible people with stroke were receiving targeted rehabilitation by occupational therapists and physiotherapists to increase outdoor journeys. The primary aim of this feasibility study was to design, test, and evaluate the impact of an implementation program intended to change the behaviour of community rehabilitation teams. A secondary aim was to measure the impact of this change on client outcomes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A before-and-after study design was used. The primary data collection method was a medical record audit. Five community rehabilitation teams and a total of 12 professionals were recruited, including occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and a therapy assistant. A medical record audit was conducted twice over 12 months (total of 77 records pre-intervention, 53 records post-intervention) against a guideline recommendation about delivering outdoor journey sessions to people with stroke. A behavioural intervention (the 'Out-and-About Implementation Program') was used to help change team practice. Active components of the intervention included feedback about the audit, barrier identification, and tailored education to target known barriers. The primary outcome measure was the proportion of medical records containing evidence of multiple outdoor journey sessions. Other outcomes of interest included the proportion of medical records that contained evidence of screening for outdoor journeys and driving by team members, and changes in patient outcomes. A small sample of community-dwelling people with stroke (n = 23) provided pre-post outcome data over three months. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and t-tests.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Medical record audits found that teams were delivering six or more outdoor journeys to 17% of people with stroke pre-intervention, rising to 32% by 12 months post-intervention. This change represents a modest increase in practice behaviour (15%) across teams. More people with stroke (57%) reported getting out of the house as often as they wanted after receiving the outdoor journey intervention compared to 35% one year earlier; other quality of life outcomes also improved.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The 'Out-and-About Implementation Program' helped rehabilitation teams to change their practice, implement evidence, and improve client outcomes. This behavioural intervention requires more rigorous evaluation using a cluster randomised trial design.</p

A snapshot of Australian nurse practitioners' extended practice activities

Introduction The Australian Nurse Practitioner Project (AUSPRAC) was initiated to examine the introduction of nurse practitioners into the Australian health service environment. The nurse practitioner concept was introduced to Australia over two decades ago and has been evolving since. Today, however, the scope of practice, role and educational preparation of nurse practitioners is well defined (Gardner et al, 2006). Amendments to specific pre-existing legislation at a State level have permitted nurse practitioners to perform additional activities including some once in the domain of the medical profession. In the Australian Capital Territory, for example 13 diverse Acts and Regulations required amendments and three new Acts were established (ACT Health, 2006). Nurse practitioners are now legally authorized to diagnose, treat, refer and prescribe medications in all Australian states and territories. These extended practices differentiate nurse practitioners from other advanced practice roles in nursing (Gardner, Chang & Duffield, 2007). There are, however, obstacles for nurse practitioners wishing to use these extended practices. Restrictive access to Medicare funding via the Medicare Benefit Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) limit the scope of nurse practitioner service in the private health sector and community settings. A recent survey of Australian nurse practitioners (n=202) found that two-thirds of respondents (66%) stated that lack of legislative support limited their practice. Specifically, 78% stated that lack of a Medicare provider number was ‘extremely limiting’ to their practice and 71% stated that no access to the PBS was ‘extremely limiting’ to their practice (Gardner et al, in press). Changes to Commonwealth legislation is needed to enable nurse practitioners to prescribe medication so that patients have access to PBS subsidies where they exist; currently patients with scripts which originated from nurse practitioners must pay in full for these prescriptions filled outside public hospitals. This report presents findings from a sub-study of Phase Two of AUSPRAC. Phase Two was designed to enable investigation of the process and activities of nurse practitioner service. Process measurements of nurse practitioner services are valuable to healthcare organisations and service providers (Middleton, 2007). Processes of practice can be evaluated through clinical audit, however as Middleton cautions, no direct relationship between these processes and patient outcomes can be assumed

A qualitative study of senior hospital managers' views on current and innovative strategies to improve hand hygiene

Background Despite universal recognition of the importance of hand hygiene in reducing the incidence of healthcare associated infections, health care workers’ compliance with best practice has been sub-optimal. Senior hospital managers have responsibilities for implementing patient safety initiatives and are therefore ideally placed to provide suggestions for improving strategies to increase hand hygiene compliance. This is an under-researched area, accordingly the aim of this study was to identify senior hospital managers’ views on current and innovative strategies to improve hand hygiene compliance. Methods Qualitative design comprising face-to-face interviews with thirteen purposively sampled senior managers at a major teaching and referral hospital in Sydney, Australia. Data were analysed thematically. Results Seven themes emerged: culture change starts with leaders, refresh and renew the message, connect the five moments to the whole patient journey, actionable audit results, empower patients, reconceptualising non-compliance and start using the hammer. Conclusions To strengthen hand hygiene programmes, strategies based on the five moments of hand hygiene should be tailored to specific roles and settings and take into account the whole patient journey including patient interactions with clinical and non-clinical staff. Senior clinical and non-clinical leaders should visibly champion and mandate best practice initiatives and articulate that hand hygiene non-compliance is culturally and professionally unacceptable to the organization. Strategies that included a disciplinary component and which conceptualise hand hygiene non-compliance as a patient safety error may be worth evaluating in terms of staff acceptability and effectiveness

Educational outreach visits to improve venous thromboembolism prevention in hospitalised medical patients: a prospective before-and-after intervention study

BACKGROUND: Despite the availability of evidence-based guidelines on venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention clinical audit and research reveals that hospitalised medical patients frequently receive suboptimal prophylaxis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the acceptability, utility and clinical impact of an educational outreach visit (EOV) on the provision of VTE prophylaxis to hospitalised medical patients in a 270 bed acute care private hospital in metropolitan Australia. METHODS: The study used an uncontrolled before-and-after design with accompanying process evaluation. The acceptability of the intervention to participants was measured with a post intervention survey; descriptive data on resource use was collected as a measure of utility; and clinical impact (prophylaxis rate) was assessed by pre and post intervention clinical audits. Doctors who admit >40 medical patients each year were targeted to receive the intervention which consisted of a one-to-one educational visit on VTE prevention from a trained peer facilitator. The EOV protocol was designed by a multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals using social marketing theory. RESULTS: Nineteen (73%) of 26 eligible participants received an EOV. The majority (n = 16, 85%) felt the EOV was effective or extremely effective at increasing their knowledge about VTE prophylaxis and 15 (78%) gave a verbal commitment to provide evidence-based prophylaxis. The average length of each visit was 15 minutes (IQ range 15 to 20) and the average time spent arranging and conducting each visit was 92 minutes (IQ range 78 to 129). There was a significant improvement in the proportion of medical patients receiving appropriate pharmacological VTE prophylaxis following the intervention (54% to 70%, 16% improvement, 95% CI 5 to 26, p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: EOV is effective at improving doctors’ provision of pharmacological VTE prophylaxis to hospitalised medical patients. It was also found to be an acceptable implementation strategy by the majority of participants; however, it was resource intensive requiring on average 92 minutes per visit

Predicting functional outcomes after stroke: An observational study of acute single-channel EEG

Background: Early and objective prediction of functional outcome after stroke is an important issue in rehabilitation. Electroencephalography (EEG) has long been utilized to describe and monitor brain function following neuro-trauma, and technological advances have improved usability in the acute setting. However, skepticism persists whether EEG can provide the same prognostic value as neurological examination. Objective: The current cohort study examined the relationship between acute single-channel EEG and functional outcomes after stroke. Methods: Resting-state EEG recorded at a single left pre-frontal EEG channel (FP1) was obtained from 16 adults within 72 h of first stroke. At 30 and 90 days, measures of disability (modified Rankin Scale; mRS) and involvement in daily activities (modified Barthel Index; mBI) were obtained. Acute EEG measures were correlated with functional outcomes and compared to an early neurological examination of stroke severity using the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Classification of good outcomes (mRS ≤1 or mBI ≥95) was also examined using Receiver Operator Curve analyses. Results: One-third to one-half of participants experienced incomplete post-stroke recovery, depending on the time point and measure. Functional outcomes correlated with acute theta values (rs 0.45–0.60), with the strength of associations equivalent to previously reported values obtained from conventional multi-channel systems. Acute theta values ≥0.25 were associated with good outcomes, with positive (67-83%) and negative predictive values (70-90%) comparable to those obtained using the NIHSS. Conclusions: Acute, single-channel EEG can provide unique, non-overlapping clinical information, which may facilitate objective prediction of functional outcome after stroke

From the Bottom Up: Developing a Literacy Practitioner Research Network in British Columbia

This roundtable will address the developments and challenges involved in building research capacity among literacy practitioners in the province of British Columbia through collaborative partnerships between various agencies. Case examples of different approaches will be presented with opportunities for questions and discussion

Knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour intentions for three bowel management practices in intensive care: effects of a targeted protocol implementation for nursing and medical staff.

Background Bowel management protocols have the potential to minimize complications for critically ill patients. Targeted implementation can increase the uptake of protocols by clinicians into practice. The theory of planned behaviour offers a framework in which to investigate clinicians’ intention to perform the behaviour of interest. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of implementing a bowel management protocol on intensive care nursing and medical staffs’ knowledge, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, behaviour intentions, role perceptions and past behaviours in relation to three bowel management practices. Methods A descriptive before and after survey using a self-administered questionnaire sent to nursing and medical staff working within three intensive care units before and after implementation of our bowel management protocol (pre: May – June 2008; post: Feb – May 2009). Results Participants had significantly higher knowledge scores post-implementation of our protocol (pre mean score 17.6; post mean score 19.3; p = 0.004). Post-implementation there was a significant increase in: self-reported past behaviour (pre mean score 5.38; post mean score 7.11; p = 0.002) and subjective norms scores (pre mean score 3.62; post mean score 4.18; p = 0.016) for bowel assessment; and behaviour intention (pre mean score 5.22; post mean score 5.65; p = 0.048) for administration of enema. Conclusion This evaluation, informed by the theory of planned behaviour, has provided useful insights into factors that influence clinician intentions to perform evidence-based bowel management practices in intensive care. Addressing factors such as knowledge, attitudes and beliefs can assist in targeting implementation strategies to positively affect clinician behaviour change. Despite an increase in clinicians’ knowledge scores, our implementation strategy did not, however, significantly change clinician behaviour intentions for all three bowel management practices. Further research is required to explore the influence of opinion leaders and organizational culture on clinicians’ behaviour intentions related to bowel management for intensive care patients

What are the reasons for clinical network success? A qualitative study

Background Clinical networks have been established to improve patient outcomes and processes of care by implementing a range of innovations and undertaking projects based on the needs of local health services. Given the significant investment in clinical networks internationally, it is important to assess their effectiveness and sustainability. This qualitative study investigated the views of stakeholders on the factors they thought were influential in terms of overall network success. Method Ten participants were interviewed using face-to-face, audio-recorded semi-structured interviews about critical factors for networks’ successes over the study period 2006–2008. Respondents were purposively selected from two stakeholder groups: i) chairs of networks during the study period of 2006–2008 from high- moderate- and low-impact networks (as previously determined by an independent review panel) and ii) experts in the clinical field of the network who had a connection to the network but who were not network members. Participants were blind to the performance of the network they were interviewed about. Transcribed data were coded and analysed to generate themes relating to the study aims. Results Themes relating to influential factors critical to network success were: network model principles; leadership; formal organisational structures and processes; nature of network projects; external relationships; profile and credibility of the network. Conclusions This study provides clinical networks with guidance on essential factors for maximising optimal network outcomes and that may assist networks to move from being a ’low-impact’ to ‘high-impact’ network. Important ingredients for successful clinical networks were visionary and strategic leadership with strong links to external stakeholders; and having formal infrastructure and processes to enable the development and management of work plans aligned with health priorities

Right care, right time, right place: improving outcomes for people with spinal cord injury through early access to intervention and improved access to specialised care: study protocol

Background: Traumatic spinal cord injury is a devastating condition impacting adversely on the health and wellbeing, functioning and independence, social participation and quality of life of the injured person. In Australia, there are approximately 15 new cases per million population per year; economic burden estimates suggest 2 billion dollars annually. For optimal patient outcomes expert consensus recommends expeditious transfer (“24 hours) in a Spinal Cord Injury Unit. Examining current health service and clinical intervention pathways in this Australian population-based sample, in relation to their outcomes, will provide an understanding of factors associated with patient flow, resource utilisation and cost, and patient and family quality of life. Barriers to streamlined effective early-care pathways and facilitators of optimal treatment for these patients will be identified