Daily Dynamic Approach in the community: Highland improvement story part one

Patient Discharge Patterns

Kate began by collaborating with her colleagues, Iona Mcgauran, Lead Nurse in Raigmore Hospital, Mark Smith, Associate South and Mid Operational Unit and Amanda Trafford, Lead Allied Health Professional. They examined the available data to determine if there were any patterns in discharging patients from the community hospitals. Kate explained:

"We identified three peaks in discharging patients from community hospitals: two days after transfer from the acute hospital; 9-11 days after transfer and 28-30 days after transfer. From this, we drew a number of conclusions. We concluded that patients discharged after two days probably didn't need to be admitted in the first place and could have gone straight home; we deduced that patients discharged after 9-11 days were probably discharged as a result of our weekly multidisciplinary team meeting and we concluded that patients discharged after 28 days were the ones who really needed to be in hospital and who required a coordinated multidisciplinary team approach to enable them to be discharged safely."

The principles of Daily Dynamic Discharge fitted in well with The Highland Quality Approach