Abstract
Introduction
During the COVID-19 pandemic, restricted hospital visitation policies were implemented to reduce the spread of the viral infection. As a result, telephone has become the main communication method despite the complexity of the elderly patients' medical and psychosocial issues. This has heightened anxiety and reduced satisfaction among patients and their families. This quality improvement project aimed at improving communication with patients' families. We introduced several strategies with the aim to update patients' families within 48 hours of admission and then at least once a week during patient's journey from admission to discharge.
Method
Retrospectively, all patients who were admitted to the ACM ward during the study period were included. Multiple Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles were implemented. As the first intervention, we added a new section on "Update patients' families" in our weekly harm free care document to identify patients' families who were not updated. Also, reminder emails were sent to all medical doctors to ensure that we record all discussions with families using "Discussions with patients and families' document". As the second intervention, a poster on "Harm Free Thursday and Update Friday" was displayed in the doctor's office. Face-to-face education was provided to new trainees to emphasise the importance of good communication with patients' families. Data was collected from electronic patient record (EPR) and Microsoft Excel was used for data collection and analysis.
Results
189 patients were included in the baseline audit which showed that only 49% of patients' families were updated weekly throughout the admission. Compliance in communication with families after the first and second cycle was 62% and 69% respectively. Following the second PDSA cycle, the percentage of patients' families who were updated within 48 hours of admission increased from 50% to 56%.
Conclusion
The project showed significant improvement in communication with patients' families with each cycle.