The Impact of introducing 'What matters to Me' meetings in a community hospital setting.

A mechanism for improving inpatient communication with patients and their families by the multidisciplinary team was desired.

 

Patients and their families were invited to a 'What Matters to Me' meeting within a few weeks of transfer to a 43 bed community rehabilitation hospital. The 'What Matters to Me' meetings were booked by nurses with families via an invitation letter given during visiting. The letter outlined the purpose and format of the meeting. The patient, family, nurse, therapist, physician associate or junior doctor and consultant participated. A small number were carried out via MS Teams. The meeting was allocated 30 minutes to discuss events of admission, medications, progress in hospital, discharge plans and anything else the patient wanted to discuss including their goals 'What Matters to Me'. This could include future care planning. Over a six-month period between January and June 2024, there were 83 Meetings and 540 admissions. Outside of the meetings, there were also both clinical discussions with patients and families and predominantly therapy-led discussions as per previous practice.

 

Analysis of the first six months after implementation of this approach showed there were no formal complaints over this period. Falls, Pressure sores and inpatient mortality were reduced. Measurement of impact on overall length of stay and readmission is ongoing. The independent quality improvement team gathered qualitative feedback from the first weeks of meetings. Feedback from relatives has been positive, including the following quotes: “It was beneficial and quite good.” “The meeting was a two-way conversation where I could talk through my views.” Potential confounding factors are: the care of the patients changed to consultant geriatrician lead service from the previous general practice lead model. A clinically optimised model with weekly medical review was also introduced.