Abstract
Background: The overall purpose of this evidence-based project was to improve the safety and quality of care for persons with dementia admitted to acute care, through a dementia friendly hospital initiative. Methods: A multi-faceted intervention was implemented, including a staff education program, development of a diversional activities program for patients with dementia in collaboration with occupational therapy, and hospital-wide dementia awareness events. Using pre-post designs, we measured staff knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in providing care to hospitalized patients with dementia, need for sitter inventions to evaluate the effectiveness of the diversional activities program, and numbers attending the dementia awareness events, satisfaction and completion of dementia friendly training. Results: To date, 61 education classes, informed from the findings from the focus groups, have been held with 366 patient technicians and 841 nurses. The Diversional Activity Program has served a total of 241 patients. A pilot study (n=6) was undertaken with the initiation of the diversional activity program to examine its effect on the use of video monitor technicians (VMT) for patients with an admitting diagnosis of dementia. There was a 53% lower rate of VMT intervention overall when diversional activities were used. Two one-half day dementia awareness events were held, with over 400 participants. The majority of participants were highly satisfied with the events (98%) and reported a better understanding of dementia (76%) and learned specific actions to support someone with dementia (70%). Conclusion: This multi-faceted intervention has raised awareness about education in this acute care hospital and has resulted in University Health System playing a leadership role in Dementia Friendly San Antonio. We are continuing to build on the project with a focus on evaluating outcomes including adverse events, length of stay, and qualitative feedback from families on the diversional activities program.
Sigma Membership
Delta Alpha at-Large
Lead Author Affiliation
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA
Type
Report
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Quality Improvement
Research Approach
Translational Research/Evidence-based Practice
Keywords:
Quality Improvement, Dementia, Acute Care, Dementia Friendly Care
Recommended Citation
White, Carole L.; Reed, Charles; and Piernik-Yoder, Bridgett, "A knowledge translation project to create a dementia friendly acute care hospital" (2020). Sigma Foundation for Nursing Research Grant Reports. 12.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/grant_reports/12
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
None: Sigma Grant Recipient Report
Acquisition
Self-submission
Date of Issue
2020-03-31
Full Text of Presentation
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