Enhancing the nutritional care of older people by recording actual body weight : a quality improvement project

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Malnutrition can have significant negative effects on older people's health, as well as a cost burden for health and social care services. Accurate, reliable and regular measurement of a patient's weight is important for prompt identification and management of malnutrition. This article discusses a quality improvement project that was undertaken in an emergency assessment unit for patients aged over 74 years in Northern Ireland. The aim of the project was to improve completion of Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) scores for patients attending the unit by nursing staff recording actual weight rather than recalled weight. A simple intervention of relocating weighing scales in the unit's triage bay resulted in an increase in completed MUST scores from 60% ( n =18) to 97% ( n =29) in the six months following the intervention. Feedback from members of the multidisciplinary team indicated that the intervention had a positive effect on the care they provided to patients and on their working relationships with colleagues.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2023

Erschienen:

2023

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2023

Enthalten in:

Emergency nurse : the journal of the RCN Accident and Emergency Nursing Association - (2023) vom: 24. Okt.

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Shannon, Cathy [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Clinical
Emergency care
Journal Article
Malnutrition
Management
Nutrition
Patient assessment
Patients
Professional
Service improvement
Triage
Undernutrition

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 24.10.2023

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status Publisher

doi:

10.7748/en.2023.e2180

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM363658777