Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) contains coded discharge data from acute hospitals in Ireland. Although the quality of HIPE data for certain indicators is high, the recording of hospital-acquired complications is limited. The active grant associated with this application examined the rates of four high frequency complications which occur to older patients in acute hospitals and are associated with functional decline. Early results indicate that this group of patients has >30% chance of acquiring one of these complications during their hospital stay.
Why it is important?
Accurate recording of these events in HIPE would enable monitoring of trends, evaluation of interventions, benchmarking across hospitals (outcomes and costs), and the potential for enhanced patient safety and quality of care for patients. HIPE coders rely on the visibility of these hospital-acquired events in the medical notes. Documentation of in-hospital treatment and events is largely completed by Non-consultant Hospital Doctors (NCHDs), frequently by interns.
What we will do?
Through co-production processes develop Real World Guidelines and Education for NCHDs, including:
Input from hospital coding managers from all acute hospitals to share knowledge related to recognition and recording of complications in discharge summaries.
Hospital Research Knowledge Translation Group to ensure input from stakeholders such as the Hospital Quality Department, and Intern Training and Education coordinators.
Anticipated outcomes:
Training materials aimed at interns to demonstrate the value of accurate HIPE data, the impact of incomplete data on outcomes, and their responsibility in this process. These may include presentations, training videos, and interactive elements to include real world examples, economic and safety implications, and the patient and clinician voice.
Training sessions for interns based on learning materials will be piloted in the study site hospital and evaluated for applicability, acceptability, learning and impact. These materials will be made available to all intern training programmes in all hospitals.