RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Hospital deaths dashboard: care indicators
JF BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care
JO BMJ Support Palliat Care
FD British Medical Journal Publishing Group
SP 230
OP 232
DO 10.1136/bmjspcare-2020-002223
VO 11
IS 2
A1 Ollie Minton
A1 Charlotte Ede
A1 Stephen Bass
A1 Simon Tavabie
A1 Amy Bourne
A1 Andreas Hiresche
YR 2021
UL http://spcare.bmj.com/content/11/2/230.abstract
AB Objectives We wanted to create a medical/nursing led data collection tool to allow for an ongoing audit of the quality of deaths in a teaching hospital. We wanted to be able to produce a visual summary to monitor our involvement, use of PRN medication, recognition of death, treatment escalation plans and communication aspects. We feel these are good surrogate indicators for quality end-of-life care.Methods We designed a purpose built spreadsheet which we have designed as an abbreviated version of the UK national audit tools. We involved a number of our core medical trainees to iterate the data collection so it could be done in a timely manner with a simple training guide. Our collective approach meant we have made this as straightforward as possible to roll out and maintain data collection.Results We collected 100 cases over a period of 6 months (August 2019 to January 2020). We created a dashboard looking at the core elements of end-of-life care and found bar treatment escalation planning all aspects were completed the majority of the time with near 100% communication to relevant family and friends.Conclusions Our sample collection tool provides a useful ongoing indicator for the quality of end-of-life care in the trust and to provide a timely infographic quarterly to feedback to interested members of the trust. We hope to be able to continue over some years to collate themes and trends. We would encourage other hospital teams to adopt our approach.Data are available in a public, open access repository.