Our second Quality Improvement event hosted speakers from nursing and medical and showcased work staff had submitted.
Improving Quality through Quality Improvement, opened by Lanarkshire Executive Medical Director Chris Deighan, was held at University Hospital Wishaw.
There were around 40 attendees and Quality Improvement (QI) enthusiasts were invited to share their projects.
Nichola Smith, Charge Nurse, Cardiac Catheterisation Labs at University Hospital Hairmyres, spoke about the QI work she carried out within the labs. She showed that the clinics were reduced from 1.7 days to one morning per week, cutting the number of phone calls made to patients by over 50 per cent.
Jill Roche, Emergency Medicine Consultant, said she had recently completed NHS Lanarkshire’s Achieving Excellence Quality Improvement Programmes (aEQUIP). She was able to use to use this to direct the many projects she has ongoing within the Flow Navigation Centre Plus, based at Kirklands.
The attendees also heard about current QI projects:
- NHS24 direct referrals test of change: a collaborative project with NHS24 to reduce unnecessary presentations to emergency departments
- GP out-of-hours in University Hospital Wishaw Emergency Department: working with the out-of-hours team to have a GP in the minor injury area from 6pm until midnight to reduce acute site pressures
- Ensuring optimal use of “immediate life-threatening” ambulances: working across primary care/Scottish Ambulance Service/Flow Navigation Centre Plus to make best use of scarce resource
The poster prize winners were Sarah Hill, Yvonne Trainer and Lorraine Moody for their South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership pressure ulcer work. Congratulations also to Tracy Hughes and Linzi Munro, who took the runner-up poster prize for their work on reducing emergency department attendances from Lornebank Care Centre in Hamilton.
