Real-world solutions for orthopaedic on-call problems

An increasing percentage of emergency departments are reporting an inadequate number of on-call specialists. This situation is causing a growing crisis in emergency department on-call coverage for patients requiring orthopaedic care. Many orthopaedic surgeons are electing to opt out of emergency department on-call service. For many reasons, including a dwindling supply of eager participants, more medical groups are finding it difficult to fulfill their on-call obligations. This problem demands a variety of strategies to address the multiple causative factors that occur in practice settings. Initially, it may be necessary to incentivize on-call service so more surgeons are willing to participate. Incentives may include improving the group governance and bylaws to avoid confusion on the rules for providing on-call coverage. The on-call experience may require financial improvements, outsourcing with locum tenens, or a complete restructuring of the on-call arrangement with the formation of a hospitalist program.

How post-call resident doctors perform, feel and are perceived in out-patient clinics

CONTEXT

 Recently, in the U.S.A., the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines limited residents' consecutive duty to 24 hours. In Europe, the European Working Time Directive limits the average working week to 48 hours.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to examine the performance of post-call residents in out-patient interviews using subjective and objective measures and to assess residents' subjective feelings.

METHODS

 We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of a systematic sample of 170 paediatric primary care consultations conducted during 117 clinic sessions served by 47 residents at a teaching hospital, including 34 consultations conducted during 23 sessions by 20 post-call residents. Interviews were audiotaped and quantitatively analysed using the Roter Interactional Analysis System (RIAS). Residents and patients' parents gave subjective appraisals of the visits using short questionnaires. Major covariates are resident gender and the timing of the clinic.

RESULTS

Results did not show significant differences between post-call residents and their peers who had left the hospital on time in most components of the out-patient interview. Subtle yet probably important differences emerged with findings that post-call residents were significantly less likely to ask a parent to repeat what she had just said, and parents seeing post-call residents were more likely to request the resident to repeat what he or she had just said and to check if the resident understood what they had said. Post-call residents were rated by objective coders as having better attitudes than their left-on-time counterparts, yet subjectively felt less satisfied and more fatigued. Female post-call residents felt less competent, less productive and less energetic; male post-call residents felt more challenged, more demoralised and busier.

CONCLUSIONS

The changes in activating and partnering talk that occur in post-call residents are consistent with findings concerning sleep deprivation and speech. Female and male residents tended to attribute their post-call performance to different factors. Setting limits on working hours might help to avoid potential negative impacts on post-call resident feelings, and the impact of working hours on resident performance warrants further exploration.

Psychiatry out-of-hours: a focus group study of GPs' experiences in Norwegian casualty clinics

BACKGROUND

For Norwegian general practitioners (GPs), acute treatment of mental illness and substance abuse are among the most commonly experienced emergency situations in out-of-hours primary healthcare. The largest share of acute referrals to emergency psychiatric wards occurs out-of-hours, and out-of-hours services are responsible for a disproportionately high share of compulsory referrals. Concerns exist regarding the quality of mental healthcare provided in the out-of-hours setting. The aim of this study was to explore which challenges GPs experience when providing emergency care out-of-hours to patients presenting problems related to mental illness or substance abuse.

METHODS

We conducted a qualitative study based on two individual interviews and six focus groups with purposively sampled GPs (totally 45 participants). The interviews were analysed successively in an editing style, using a thematic approach based on methodological descriptions by Charmaz and Malterud.

RESULTS

Safety and uncertainty were the dominating themes in the discussions. The threat to personal safety due to unpredictable patient behaviour was a central concern, and present security precautions in the out-of-hours services were questioned. The GPs expressed high levels of uncertainty in their work with patients presenting problems related to mental illness or substance abuse. The complexity of the problems presented, shortage of time, limited access to reliable information and limited range of interventions available during out-of-hours contributed to this uncertainty. Perceived access to second opinion seemed to have a major impact on subjectively experienced work stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The GPs experienced out-of-hours psychiatry as a field with high levels of uncertainty and limited support to help them meet the experienced challenges. This might influence the quality of care provided. If the current organisation of emergency mental healthcare is to be kept, we need to provide GPs with a better support framework out-of-hours.

Task Manager: an innovative approach to improving hospital communication after hours

AIM

To improve communication between doctors and nurses after hours, by developing a tool to display ward tasks, allowing staff to prioritise their work, without constant interruption from pagers (beepers).

SETTING

Middlemore Hospital, a large metropolitan 800-bed hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.

METHOD

Introduction of computerised system (Task Manager) to identify, allocate and complete after-hours tasks.

RESULTS

In the first 6 months 21,000 tasks have been completed in Task Manager. Paging of junior doctors has decreased by over 30% and there is broad acceptance of the tool by both nursing and medical staff. Task Manager has collected real-time data on the type of after hours tasks (nearly 50% are phlebotomy-related tasks), busy times of the day (1600 hours to 2400 hours) and who is performing most of the tasks.

CONCLUSION

Task Manager is a simple yet powerful tool for prioritising routine tasks after hours. It allows staff to quickly create tasks, and communicate effectively with other members of the team. It has reduced the frequency of junior doctors paging so that they can continue their work with fewer interruptions. Whilst it was introduced to improve effective communication after hours, it has become apparent that there are multiple 'tasks' that are ordered in a multitude of ways in our hospital and many could be served by Task Manager.

A carer's perspective. Interview by Lynne Pearce

In the fourth article in the series on managing change, Julie Newby describes how she improved end of life care and Stephen Wright analyses the skills she used.

How to set up an effective national primary angioplasty network: lessons learned from five European countries

AIMS

Percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) are used to treat acute and chronic forms of coronary artery disease. While in chronic forms the main goal of PCI is to improve the quality of life, in acute coronary syndromes (ACS) timely PCI is a life-saving procedure - especially in the setting of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The aim of this study was to describe the experience of countries with successful nationwide implementation of PCI in STEMI, and to provide general recommendations for other countries.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) recenty launched the Stent For Life Initiative (SFLI). The initial phase of this pan-European project was focused on the positive experience of five countries to provide the best practice examples. The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark and Austria were visited and the logistics of ACS treatment was studied. Public campaigns improved patient access to acute PCI. Regional networks involving emergency medical services (EMS), non-PCI hospitals and PCI centres are useful in providing access to acute PCI for most patients. Direct transfer from the first medical contact site to the cathlab is essential to minimise the time delays. Cathlab staff work is organised to provide acute PCI services 24 hours a day / seven days a week (24/7). Even in those regions where thrombolysis is still used due to long transfer distances to PCI, patients should still be transferred to a PCI centre (after thrombolysis). The highest risk non-ST elevation acute myocardial infarction patients should undergo emergency coronary angiography within two hours of hospital admission, i.e. similar to STEMI patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Three realistic goals for other countries were defined based on these experiences: 1) primary PCI should be used for >70% of all STEMI patients, 2) primary PCI rates should reach >600 per million inhabitants per year and 3) existing PCI centres should treat all their STEMI patients by primary PCI, i.e. should offer a 24/7 service.

Creating teams for acute clinical services

This article discusses how a project group at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, developed four multiprofessional teams that can provide first responses for acutely ill inpatients on both of the trust's hospital sites, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Sharing after hours care in a rural New Zealand community--a service utilization survey

INTRODUCTION

As the rural general practice workforce in New Zealand changes, after hours services are under pressure to change. This is an international problem. This article reports on an initiative in a rural New Zealand community to meet the need for after hours care. First contact for patients is with a community nursing team operating from the local health centre, complemented by on-call advice from GPs and GP clinics twice daily at weekends.

OBJECTIVE

To report on the demand for after hours services generated by a geographically defined community in New Zealand.

DESIGN

A prospective cross-sectional survey of after hours utilization over a one month period using questionnaires was completed by the full range of healthcare professionals providing care.

SETTING

A single geographically defined rural community of 9200 people in the North Island of New Zealand.

PARTICIPANTS

Rural GPs, community nurses and the ambulance service.

RESULTS

Only 90/204 patient contacts were seen by the GPs with the remainder being managed by the nurses or ambulance staff. Nurses referred more patients to the base hospital but overall 87% of contacts handled by the doctors and nurses were managed locally. Estimated out of hours contact rate was 320/1000 persons/year (including telephone consultations). For direct face-to-face contact the rate was 245/1000 per year: for Maori the rate was 425/1000 per year while for non-Maori the rate was 151/1000 per year. Ambulance services provided an urgent call service at the rate of 29/1000 persons per year.

CONCLUSION

A collaborative service providing after hours care to a rural community is described and utilization rates assessed. The model of first on-call nurse with GP back up provides a sustainable service and reduces the burden on rural doctors without reducing patient access.

Primary care. Open all hours

The Department of Health has commissioned the Primary Care Foundation to benchmark out of hours care providers. The benchmark has revealed startling differences around the UK. Services, call handling methods and software all vary, so comparisons are difficult.