CQI project focuses on patient education
Rehab facility offers more resource info
A patient satisfaction survey conducted at the University of North Carolina Health Care Rehabilitation Center in Chapel Hill, indicated that the facility needed to get the word out about community resources.
Only 59% of survey respondents said they had received information about community resources that would be available to them post-discharge, says Becky Binney, MEd, TRS/CTRS, senior recreational therapist for the hospital-based facility.
A rehab team decided this warranted a continuous quality improvement (CQI) project that would make improvements and track patient satisfaction outcomes. Since the facility already was developing new patient education binders, one easy approach would be to place additional information about community resources into the binders. Although the CQI project still is under way, Binney says she is confident it will be successful. Here’s how it works:
1. Form committee to write goals.
The CQI committee consists of a nurse and senior therapists, including a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist. Committee members brainstormed to identify goals and possible solutions. The goals were:
• to assist in the development of comprehensive interdisciplinary educational pathways and mechanism for disseminating information to rehabilitation patients prior to their discharge;
• to ensure patients are receiving all necessary educational information prior to discharge;
• to improve staff knowledge and ability to teach and disseminate information to patients;
• to ensure patients are receiving necessary information relevant to their specific diagnosis;
• to improve the rehabilitation patient satisfaction survey scores related to "receipt of community resources" from 59% to at least 80%.
2. Assist in development of patient binders.
The rehab facility already was working on creating patient education binders that would provide patients and their families with detailed descriptions of the rehab experience, information about the patient’s specific injury, medication information, and sections on functional needs, exercise, and other important material. It was not difficult to add a section to the three-ring binder on community resources. The binder gives recreational therapists a more effective method for providing patients with educational information about community services that patients can access after discharge.
In addition to the patient education notebook, the staff will use a patient education checklist, which is included in the notebook, to make sure patients have received everything they need to know about community resources. Once a patient is given instruction and provided with the information, the recreational therapist checks off that category. Therapists also will file related handouts in the designated sections of the patient’s educational binder so that the patient can refer to these after being discharged.
The CQI team and recreational therapists identified these key components of the community resource information to be provided to each patient:
• transportation systems, car/van modification, and disability permits;
• community resources, including senior centers, adult day care centers, adaptive programs, YMCAs, wellness facilities, learning opportunities in the community, advocacy groups, and support groups;
• recreational opportunities, including special equipment orders, sign-up for catalogs, adaptive equipment, wheelchair sports programs, adaptive recreational opportunities, and mainstreaming into other community recreational programs.
3. Research community resources.
Committee members already had some information about community resources, and these were updated and added to the community resources section of the binders. The resource material included listings of local facilities and organizations, as well as general support and resource information.
Call local service groups to update list
To make sure they were not missing new resources, CQI team members called various local organizations. "Some of the problem might be that patients don’t understand what you mean by resources," Binney says.
"So we developed handout sheets," she explains. "For stroke patients, we made hand-outs with phone numbers for the American Heart Association; for spinal cord injury patients, we provided information about support groups." Each patient is given a flier with this type of information upon discharge.
The team also found some very useful material at an Independent Living Fair the rehab facility sponsored in a local mall. The 50 vendors included assistive technology companies and service organizations catering to disabled individuals. "This was an opportunity to go around and see what other organizations offered," Binney says.
For example, the rehab fair had booths about transportation systems in different counties, and since that’s a big issue for many people, Binney included that information in the community resource section.
Other local resources are senior centers, adult day care, and independent living programs. The binder includes lists of these types of services and their locations, divided by county, so patients can easily see which are closest to their homes.
"We provide catalogs about adaptive equipment, crafts, and sports programs that patients can access after they’re discharged," Binney says.
4. Periodically update and track success.
The community resource information is updated frequently. Each time a patient is admitted, a recreational therapist will make more phone calls to find resources in that patient’s home town or county. Once the patient education notebooks are completed and distributed to patients, the CQI team will track patient satisfaction outcomes to see whether the changes have resulted in a measurable improvement. "We give each patient a satisfaction survey before the patient leaves the rehab center," Binney explains.
Need More Information?
Becky Binney, MEd, TRS/CTRS, Senior Recreational Therapist, University of North Carolina Health Care Rehabilitation Center, 101 Manning Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Telephone: (919) 966-2292.
Susan Evers, MPH, Administrative Director, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Campus Box 7200, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7200. Telephone: (919) 966-5165. Fax: (919) 843-0164. E-mail: [email protected].
Stephanie McAdams, MA, CCC-SLP, Education Coordinator, University of North Carolina Health Care Rehabilitation Centers, 101 Manning Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Telephone: (919) 966-2029.
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