A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO QUALITY IMPROVEMENT FOR BURN CARE in Low-Resourced Settings
ASSESSMENT of the problem Once you have started to uncover the potential causes of a problem as a team, using the above techniques, you can take these ideas and create methods to MEASURE them, to assess the size of the problem and identify how much each identified factor is affecting the problem. You must start with a baseline assessment of the problem ; without knowing where you started you won’t know if you have made an improvement. This baseline measurement can also help you identify where to start your project.
The following is an example of how Olive & Ziphilly assessed the problem of recording vital signs and fluid balance, prior to implementation of the final project.
Assessment of the problem
✔ Checklist tool was created which contained 15 indicators of what needed to be done.
✔ Project leaders randomly checked through HDU observation chart documentation and identified vital signs and fluid balance monitoring and documentation on HDU observation charts were not done 2 hourly as per local guidelines.
✔ The problem was communicated to all burns staff during a meeting and the QI team was selected.
✔ The QI team retrieved 20 patient files with HDU observation charts for October and November 2019. The HDU observation charts were assessed against the checklist. 50% had poor vital signs and fluid balance monitoring and documentation.
✔ The problem was presented to the nurses during a meeting.
PAGE 19
Made with FlippingBook Publishing Software