NCT04493866

Quality Improvement Study on Operative Consent Forms

Delivering High Quality Documentation on Operative Consent Forms; A UK Major Trauma Centre Quality Improvement Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 100 (actual)
• Sponsor: Barts & The London NHS Trust · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: —

Summary

A Quality Improvement Project was undertaken to improve the completion of operative consent forms within a UK hospital plastic surgery department. Four weekly interventions were made which were accompanied by four further data collection cycles.

Detailed description

Background Royal College of Surgeons guidelines exist on the importance of full, accurate and legible completion of consent forms as a key part of the process of gaining informed consent. In addition to this, consent forms serve as an important medico-legal document to protect clinicians and patients should problems arise. It is therefore in all parties' interests that they are correctly completed. It was noted that consent forms within the Royal London Hospital Plastic Surgery department were often not correctly completed. A Quality Improvement Project was undertaken to improve the completion of consent forms within the department. Materials and Methods Common problem areas on consent forms were identified and QI methodology was used to design the study including selection of appropriate outcome, process and balancing measures. Baseline information on completion of: 1) patient details, 2) consultant details, 3) legibility, 4) use of abbreviations in description of operation/complications, and 5) patient signatures was collected. Four weekly interventions were made which were accompanied by four further data collection cycles. A further re-audit took place 4 months following the completion of the project to establish whether improvements had been sustained.

Conditions

• Quality Improvement
• Informed Consent

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Messages to departmental employees to improve quality of consent form completion	All interventions directed to members of the plastic surgery department: Intervention 1: Poster illustration common mistakes on consent forms. Intervention 2: Group message explaining Quality Improvement Project to the department. Intervention 3: Email from Consultant lead in support of project. Intervention 4: Further group message illustrating gains and ongoing goals of the project.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-01-06
• Primary completion: 2020-02-03
• Completion: 2020-06-20
• First posted: 2020-07-30
• Last updated: 2020-07-30

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United Kingdom