Quality Improvement of Discharge Planning for Patients with Head and Neck Cancer, Eye Ear Nose and Throat Ward, Buddhachinaraj Phitsanulok Hospital

Abstract

Discharge planning is the preparing for a patient before leaving the hospital in order to obtain continuous care. The objective of this study was to improve the quality of discharge planning of patients with head and neck cancer in Eye Ear Nose and Throat ward, Buddhachinaraj hospital, Phitsanulok, by using PDCA quality improvement process. The participants were 19 multidisciplinary teams, 23 patients with head and neck cancer who were operated on, and 23 caregivers. The study instruments developed by the researcher were 1) the focus group interview guidelines for multidisciplinary teams regarding the problems of discharge planning, 2) the interview guidelines for patients and caregivers regarding the needs of discharge, 3) the questionnaires for collecting problems and suggestions of discharge planning, 4) the ability assessment form of patients and caregivers in performing nursing activities which was modified from the questionnaire developed by Deawsurintr (1999), 5) the observation form for assessing the performance of multidisciplinary teams on discharge planning, 6) the satisfaction assessment form of patients and caregivers, and 7) the satisfaction assessment form of multidisciplinary teams regarding discharge planning. The quality of all instruments was confirmed by three experts. The Kuder–Richardson(KR-20) coefficient of the ability assessment form of patients and caregivers in conducting nursing activities was .89. Data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics.

                   The results revealed that: most of the multidisciplinary teams could completely perform the discharge planning for more than 80%, most of patients with head and neck cancer and their caregivers could completely perform nursing activities for more than 90%, patients with head and neck cancer were satisfied with the discharge planning at a high (69.57%) and the highest levels(30.43%), the multidisciplinary teams were satisfied with the discharge planning at a  high (52.94 %) and the highest levels (47.06 %). This study showed good outcomes of discharge planning on the patient’s quality of life in which administrators should support the uses of discharge planning for other groups of patients.