Quality Improvement Award Winners Announced

Date: 17 June 2015

The annual Clinical Audit and Quality Improvement Awards took place on 9 June 2015. These awards are an opportunity for members of staff to share projects that have demonstrated a positive change to patient care through clinical effectiveness, efficiency or responsiveness.
 
Finalists presented their projects to a packed lecture theatre full of their colleagues, and the standard of the competition was extremely high. Lesley Dwyer, Chief Executive, was on hand to give out the awards at a full to capacity lecture theatre, she said “The event was incredible, everyone was engaged and so energised, showcasing wonderful projects across the hospital which impact the quality and care of patients directly, it was very inspiring.” The winning team was the Orthopaedic and Surgical Patient Enhancement Team (SPET), represented by Mr Rajesh Bawale, Specialist Registrar in Orthopaedics.
 
The SPET initiative provides education, support, therapy and care to patients allowing for flexibility of discharge criteria. The primary aim of the project was efficiency in order to reduce the number of day’s a patient occupies a bed. Patient safety was at the heart of all communications with the SPET initiative strongly ensuring that early discharge must not result in an increase in post-operative complications.
 
Mr Rajesh Bawale and his team have reduced the average length of stay at the Trust from 4.81 days in 2013-14 to 3.83 days in 2014-15, with the number of patient surgical readmissions falling during the same period. Most important of all patient satisfaction has remained high with surveys demonstrating that 100% of patients were highly satisfied to satisfied.
 
This has led to improved patient satisfaction with a great deal of positive feedback, one patient commented, “This is a remarkable team of professional people whose main concern is to get me up and about. Their medical background made me feel comfortable to be going home early. I hope the SPET team will be able to go from strength to strength.” Mr Rajesh Bawale was delighted at the win, commenting that, “The hard work of SPET is at the core of this project’s success. We are hugely proud of the work performed by the team, and would like to thank them for their dedication to realising optimal patient outcomes.”
 
Second-place was given to the Urology Unit for their excellent work in improving patient safety and patient journey. The team focussed on greater ward nurse presence, greater doctor introductions and importantly for the sensitive nature of the water works, a greater number of curtains drawn for patient privacy. Third-place was given to the remarkable work of the Maternity Unit for their STOMP initiative to decrease third and forth degree perennial tears in women giving birth. Dr Ghada Ramadan, Associate Medical Director (Quality and Safety) chaired the event, saying, “The turn-out was amazing, we had record numbers of staff in attendance, some even stood up for the whole event. Across the organisation, the standard of entries was very high, which demonstrates our deep and ongoing commitment to quality and safety at Medway Hospital”.
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