Improving Patient Outcomes event

Acute care is a high risk clinical area where the interventions required are often complex and associated with significant risk to individual patients. Additionally, the delivery of care is often delayed. These concerns have been challenging to healthcare. The short guideline, published by NICE on 25 July 2007 on the Acutely ill Patient will go some way to addressing the components of care such patients should expect. View the guidelines here.

This conference introduces the tools developed by NICE to support their guidance. These include a framework of competencies required by the ward teams to effectively manage acutely ill patients and present examples of Track and Trigger systems. The day also provided an opportunity to learn about the complimentary work in this field that is being undertaken by the NPSA, Hospital at Night team and the Institute for Innovation and Improvement.

The event is aimed at all clinicians engaged in delivering care in the acute setting but especially Medical Directors, Senior Nurses, leads for Clinical Governance, Hospital at Night teams and service improvement leads.

The event took place on Friday 16th November 2007 at the Royal College of Physicians. The structure of the day included a primary plenary session then a selection of breakout sessions in the morning and afternoon.