Along with a colleague, I set up an Advanced Nurse Practitioner-led Ambulatory Care Unit within an acute medcial admissions ward. My dissertation for my MSc involved looking at the effect of the introduction of this unit on the patient's zero length of stay, wait to chest x-ray and admission rates.
The zero length of stay was reduced from 300 minutes to 230 minutes.
The wait to chest x-ray was reduced form 183 minutes to 78 minutes.
The odds of being admitted was 8.11 times higher prior to the introduction of the ACU.
Following that I set up a Therapies Unit with the intention of further reducing unneccassry admission to a hospital bed for patients attending for procedures such as biopsies or ERCPs.
From July 2015 to July 2017, the introduction of the Therapies Unit has resulted in a saving of between 893 and 956 hospital beds and between 269 and 119 overnight stays in hospital.
I am passionate about service improvement and I strongly believe that the best way to bring about change is to start small but to do it well!
I am not an advocate of meetings! The best way to convince people that your idea is efficient and effective is to just do it!
I am also passionate about nurturing the desire for service improvement in those on the "shop floor". I am eager to abolish the theory that service change comes from managers. It is vitally important that we empower our nurses to believe that they can bring about change. Small changes can have big impacts!