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Journal of Public Health Policy and Planning | Volume 3
April 08-09, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland
Health Care and Neuroscience
International Conference on
A team approach to using the synergy paƟent characterisƟc tool to inform staff
assignments on an In-paƟent ABI RehabilitaƟon unit
Denise Johnson
Hamilton Health Sciences, Canada
Background:
Synergy is a model of care which
considers the patient’s needs, the staff competencies
and the environment in order to optimize the quality
of care. Synergy was developed by the American
Association of critical care nurses as a way of
quantifying patient needs in order to optimize care.
At Hamilton Health Sciences extensive work has gone
in to customizing the Synergy tools so they accurately
reflect the population served. A standardized patient
characteristic tool was developed. This tool was then
trialed on several units across the hospital. This case
example illustrates how it was used in a unique way
on the ABI unit to assign care based on team scores
instead of individual scores.
Method:
A lean six sigma approach was used to
describe the current state of how staff assignments
were done (i.e. how staff are assigned a caseload
of patients); identify gaps and opportunities and;
to implement the new Synergy model to inform
staff assignment. Pre and post implementation data
was collected to track: staff satisfaction; time to
complete assigning process; and perceived workload.
Conclusion:
Results show dramatic improvement in
time to complete staff assignments from 3 hours
down to 30 minutes. Staff satisfaction was tracked
in 15 domains and significant improvements were
noted in 11 of those. Additionally the perceived
workload improved from40 % reporting and unsafe
or unmanageable caseload pre-implementation to
21% of staff reporting an unsafe or unmanageable
caseload on a given day. These results suggest
significant merit in this approach to assigning care.
e
:
johnsden@HHSC.CA