Medical Audits Quality and Safety Bundle includes the Full NHS Safety Thermometer to facilitate easy collection of the data and automated upload directly into the NHS Safety Thermometer data entry tool.
As with all Medical Audit systems, the data is available in real time on the audit devices AND on up to the minute digital dashboards, providing staff with feedback as soon as the audit is completed.
The NHS Safety Thermometer was designed in collaboration with over 160 different healthcare providers in the UK with the goal of developing a local improvement tool for ‘measuring, monitoring and analysing patient harms and ‘harm free’ care.
The NHS Patient Safety Thermometer is basically a a 'temperature check' or a snap shot in time to measure the proportion of patients who are 'harm free'.
Of course the Safety Thermometer tool also measures four of the basic types of ways patients can be harmed in their interactions with Healthcare. These measures of harm include number of old pressure ulcers, number of new pressure ulcers, number of patient falls where the patient sustained a harm, number of patients who developed a venous thromboembolism and number of patients treated for urinary tract infections who have urinary catheters.
This standardised system of measurement provides the opportunity for all organisations where care is delivered to benchmark against each other in a meaningful, standardised way.
The collection of Safety Thermometer data is very worthwhile and has driven improvements in patient care.
However the man hours associated with the data collection, follow up of missing data, cross reference of bed numbers and data entry are huge.
USING MEDICAL AUDITS SAFETY THERMOMETER YOU CAN:-
SAVE HOURS OF STAFF TIME
Medical Audits Safety Thermometer Tool is designed to ensure data collectors do not miss key information.
APPLY LEAN METHODOLOGY TO NHS SAFETY THERMOMETER DATA COLLECTION
The data is entered once and only once avoiding double data entry completely.
MAXIMISE YOUR RESOURCES
You can be sure all your beds are accounted for and submit your monthly data to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) efficiently and with minimal staff man hours.
SUPPORT THE PRODUCTIVE WARD INITIATIVE
By streamlining processes and using technology to assist with data collection, resources can be allocated to increase time to care.
CLASSIC SAFETY THERMOMETER AUDIT TOOL
Safety Thermometer classic tool allows staff to measure harm and record the proportion of Harm Free Care they have delivered
This template gives nurses a standardised way of checking the standard of the basic care they provide and also provide them with an indication of where things are going wrong and patients being harmed as a result.
The Safety Thermometer measurement tool is the recommended auditing tool for measuring pressure ulcers as part of the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) payment programme.
NHS Safety Thermometer involves measuring a number of very specific patient outcomes designed to assess the harm to patients.
This front line audit tool has been key to reducing numbers of pressure ulcer by 42% and blood clots by 72% according to a study carried out by the NHS last year.
The data is collected on 1 day per month, auditing as many patients as possible – aiming for 100%.
These include:
- The number of patients with a pressure ulcer of grade 2 or higher.
- The number of patients who had a fall in the past 3 days
- The number of patients started on treatment for UTI in the past 3 days
- The number of patients started on medication to prevent blood clots (VTE Prophylaxis)
- The number of patients started on medication to treat a blood clot such as Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) Venous Thromboembolism (VTE).
The Department of Health has published lots of guidance and definition documents to assist hospitals in completing the Safety Thermometer return accurately. These are available on the NHS Safety Thermometer web site.
The audit involves going to every bed and then checking the patient and their file to see if they have been harmed in the previous 72 hrs
Medical Audits Safety Thermometer data collection tool facilitates this point of care audit with bespoke developed mobile auditing systems that use the most up to date technology to provide seamless auditing and reporting so you can measure and monitor the care provided and put interventions in place to reduce patient harm.