Abstract
Introduction: Within our hospital, the Surgical Acute Frailty Team (SAFT) delivers perioperative care to the older emergency surgical population. SAFT focuses on early identification of frailty using the Clinical Frailty Scale and subsequent comprehensive geriatric assessment delivery. The most common referral reason to the team is delirium therefore widespread awareness and timely management is essential. Given the challenging clinical environment, SAFT decided to implement a blended teaching programme to support with delivering frailty education to the surgical multidisciplinary team. The aim of the education programme was to improve confidence in frailty identification, delirium assessment and management.
Methods: Teaching sessions targeting all healthcare professionals were delivered by members of SAFT. Education was delivered in two formats: ‘tea trolley teaching’ and small group classroom-based lectures. ‘Tea trolley teaching’ provides focussed ward-based education with a sweet treat provided as an incentive to attend. Feedback was gathered real-time before and after sessions to identify areas of knowledge improvement.
Results: 53 healthcare professionals attended these face to face teaching sessions. Prior to receiving this education, only 26% of participants felt confident in the identification of frailty. This improved to 91% post education. There was also significant improvement in participants’ confidence with delirium assessment from 23% to 74%. A similar improvement was also recorded in confidence with use of the TIME bundle for delirium management from 13% to 60%.
Conclusions: Delivering our education programme using a blended learning approach has improved participants’ confidence with frailty identification, delirium assessment and management. Future plans include the expansion of the teaching curriculum to include other common frailty-related topics, with the goal of improving the perioperative care of older adults within the emergency surgical setting.