Bite-sized Teaching on the ​ Older Person’s Same Day Emergency Clinic​

Category one – clinical effectiveness 

Category two- Innovation 

Background 

The Older Person’s Same Day Emergency Clinic (OSDEC) at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust is an acute admission unit for older people. 

Introduction 

The aim of this quality improvement project was to design and deliver a teaching programme to improve understanding of key OPM topics and the complexity of older patients on OSDEC.  This would facilitate rapid holistic assessment and effective communication within the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and with other services, improving patient flow through OSDEC, which improves patient experience and hospital pressures.    

Method 

We developed a survey to identify the learning needs and team members who could share their knowledge. We created a teaching curriculum and sourced educators from the OSDEC and the wider hospital team.  Twice weekly 10 minute “bite-sized” teaching sessions were scheduled following the MDT board rounds and feedback was collected.  We conducted a review at 3 months to assess the reception and impact of the teaching. 

Results 

Average confidence scores before and after teaching improved by 0.91 on a 5-point scale.  Staff rated the topics and the bite-size model positively on the feedback survey.  17 teaching sessions were delivered, with the main challenge being identifying educators.   

Conclusion 

In the busy environment of OSDEC, our bite-sized teaching is a sustainable teaching model for the MDT. The programme increased staff confidence in a range of key OPM topics, showing that the bite-size model was effective, while building the teaching skills and confidence of team members.  Going forward we aim to formalize a cyclical OSDEC curriculum.