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Development and Implementation of Patient Safety Checklists Before, During and After In-hospital Surgery

Not Applicable
Completed
Conditions
Safety Issues
Health Literacy
Surgery
Health Economics
Patient Safety
Complication
Interventions
Other: Patient Safety Checklist
Registration Number
NCT03105713
Lead Sponsor
Haukeland University Hospital
Brief Summary

Building on the Norwegian Patient Safety Program's target areas, the Patients' Surgical Checklist (PASC) will empower surgical patients to become more involved in their own safety and contribute to preventive safety measures. A safety checklist for patients to use has been developed and validated for use in surgical patients. In a Stepped Wedge Cluster RCT effects of patients using their own checklists to avoid preventable patient harm are examined. The project will re-use existing health and personal data collected from patient records and patient reported data as outcome measures. A consortium of all relevant stakeholders and users participate: two hospitals with seven surgical clusters, patient representatives, representatives of general practitioners, and interdisciplinary in-hospital professionals. The important project partners are information and communications technology companies (Helse-Vest IKT and CheckWare service delivery), general practitioners, and national and international research partners leading in the field of patient safety, implementation science and health economics.

Detailed Description

The PASC consist of measures that enable patients to optimize their own health prior to surgery and for discharge from hospital. The checklist addresses risk areas as pre-operative information and preparations, post-operative information, and post-operative plans and follow-up. Pre-operative risk areas are contact information, medication safety, health status, optimizing health and nutritional status, dental status, comprehend critical information, preparation two weeks before surgery, communication with surgical ward, and discharge planning. Post-operative risk areas are prevention of complications, medication safety, activity restriction, and pain relief.

The checklist has been developed in cooperation with patients, patients' representatives, surgeons, general practitioners, ward doctors, nurses, pharmacists, clinical nutritionists, safety officers, hospital managers, information technology experts and the researchers. The intervention include paper and electronically versions of the checklist. Of eligible surgical wards, seven were randomly selected based on power calculation. All the invited wards agreed to participate. Surgical patients from these wards, in two Norwegian hospitals, will be invited to participate in the trial. Based on data from a validation and feasibility study of PASC, the power analysis suggest to include 38 patients per month (on average), per cluster over 20 months, as the lowest number of participants to detect a 5% (33.3% relative risk reduction). An intra-cluster-correlation at 0.05, and type I and type II error at 0.05 and 0.20, respectively, were assumed.

The outcomes of this study are primarily patient outcomes (morbidity and mortality). The study further assess outcomes on nutritional status (MST form), implementation (acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility survey), health economic (EQ-5D-3L) data, and health literacy (HLQ), from surveys and forms.

Based on power calculation, 350 questionnaires will be distributed in each arm of the trial (baseline and internvention).

Focus group interviews with content analysis will be applied to assess patients and health care personnel's experiences with patients' use of PASC.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
6191
Inclusion Criteria

Elective surgery.

  • Age over 18 years.
  • Able to use Norwegian language.
  • Patients must have had surgery 2-4 weeks before inclusion for the focus group interviews.
Exclusion Criteria
  • Must be cognitive able to use the checklist.
  • Age under 18 years.
  • Non-surgical procedures.

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
CROSSOVER
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Patient Safety Checklist InterventionPatient Safety ChecklistThe intervention to be administered is a patient safety checklist (two parts) for patients to be performed on paper or electronically: a) before admission to hospital, and b) under hospital stay (discharge)
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Number of embolism associated with the hospital stayUp to 30 days

Number of embolies

Number of infectionsUp to 30 days

Numbers of infections

Number of mechanical implant complicationsUp to 30 days

Number of mechanical implant complications

Number of re-operationsUp to 30 days

Number of re-operations

Number of complications associated with the participants surgeryUp to 30 days

Total numbers of complications

Number of complications within respiratory systemUp to 30 days

Number of respiratory complications

Number of complications within cardio-thoracic systemUp to 30 days

Number of cardio-thoracic complications

Number of nervous system complicationsUp to 30 days

Number of nervous system complications

Volume of bleeding associated with operationUp to 30 days

Volume of bleedings in mL

Number of re-admissionsUp to 30 days

Number of re-admissions

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Rate of patient scores on EQ5DUp to 3 months

Mean scores of EQ5D

Rate of patient scores on Health Literacy QuestionaireUp to 3 months post discharge

Mean scores of HLQ and EQ5D surveys

Rates of Checklist Implementation Survey scoresUp to 3 months post discharge

Mean scores on checklist implementation survey

Number of deaths associated with surgeryUp to 90 days

Total numbers of deaths

Trial Locations

Locations (2)

Haukeland University Hospital

🇳🇴

Bergen, Norway

Førde Central Hospital

🇳🇴

Førde, Norway

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