6th UK and Ireland Implementation Science Research Conference 2023

Improving comprehensive care: insights from a mixed method survey following the introduction of Australian Comprehensive Care Standard

O21

PRESENter

Beibei Xiong
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authors

Beibei Xiong, Daniel Bailey, Paul Prudon, Christine Stirling and Melinda Martin-Khan

Biography

Beibei Xiong is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland, Australia, where she is dedicated to studying the implementation and impacts of the NSQHC Comprehensive Care Standard in Australian hospitals. With a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Jilin University, China, and a Master’s degree in Health Science from the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada, Beibei’s research interests focus on improving healthcare outcomes and enhancing patient experiences through better care delivery.

background

In 2019, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) mandated the Comprehensive Care Standard (CCS) as a means of ensuring patients receive total health care that meets their needs. Health organisations use different approaches to meet the requirements of the standard, but they are measured against a common set of key indicators. This project aims to examine the implementation challenges and facilitators of the CCS and the impacts of the CCS on patient care and outcomes in acute care hospitals.

MEthod

A questionnaire was developed based on the ACSQHC’s evaluation of the CCS survey and CCS implementation guide. The main survey included five sections: demographics, knowledge, practices, barriers and facilitators, and perceived effects. We distributed the survey to care professionals through healthcare organisations’ and clinical networks’ websites, newsletters, emails, and social media from October 1, 2022 to April 30, 2023. RStudio was used for descriptive analysis, and Nvivo was used for theme analysis on text.

results

We received 659 valid responses from Australian care professionals. Common implementation barriers include lack of training and education, heavy documentation burden, staff shortage, team communication and handover gaps, and competing priorities. Common facilitators include leadership across the organisation, consumer involvement, risk screening tools in place, paperwork modified to tailor CCS, training and accessible information resources, and continuous feedback and quality improvement. Most participants think that following the introduction of the CCS, there was an improvement in areas such as interdisciplinary collaboration, shared decision-making, care continuity, and patient education, but also an increase in healthcare costs.

Conclusion

Integrating the existing system and process and providing extensive organisational support are needed for a successful implementation of the CCS. There is also a particular need for education and training on effective communication for shared decision-making and an interdisciplinary approach to patient risk identification and management.