At last week’s QI Awards there were some fantastic examples of teams using the methodology to improve patient safety and reduce harms.
This year’s winners of the Improvement Science Award were Suzanne Churchill and Debbie McAteer from Ward15a, whose project had the aim of increasing the percentage of compliance of fluid balance monitoring on their ward.
Speaking about the project, Debbie said: “Our aim was to improve compliance for our fluid balance completion using a PDSA approach. Starting with an audit, then completing a driver diagram, to identify our stakeholders, blockers, and how we were going to breakdown these barriers.
“We continued to audit half the patients on the ward weekly at various time of the day, and use the results of the data to plan what we were going to do next. We involved everyone on the ward including our patients.
Our housekeeper Wendy was a massive support and a daily driver for our improvement initiative. When the initial result came back it was disheartening, but as our compliance improved, and staff saw this visually on the run charts, put together by Emma Wiper and her QI team, staff soon saw how their input had improved compliance.”
There were seven finalists in the QI Awards with judges Dr Samra, Lisa Horkin and Joanne Li all agreeing that the Ward 15a project was a deserving winner.
Debbie said: “Although Suzanne Churchill and I initiated the improvement and are delighted with the award, it is all credit to the HCA’s, staff nurses and Band 6’s on ward 15a that actually should take the credit and be proud of the continual improvement in the fluid balance compliance, as it is they who complete these daily, now to a very high standard.”