A quality improvement initiative including a modified WHO sign-in pause and documentation sticker improved local anaesthetic documentation rates from 0% at baseline to >95%.
Do quality improvement interventions improve the documentation of local anaesthetic dosing in adult surgical patients?
Low-cost workflow interventions, such as a modified WHO sign-in pause and standardized documentation stickers, can significantly improve the documentation of safe local anaesthetic dosing.
Absolute Event Rate: 95% vs 0%
Summary The use of local anaesthetics is widespread in peri‐operative care and guidance recommends calculating and documenting the maximum safe dose and recording drug concentration in mg.ml −1 . We conducted a single‐centre quality improvement project to improve documentation of local anaesthetic dosing in 357 adult surgical patients. Six plan‐do‐study‐act cycles were implemented over 10 months, including staff education, a dose‐calculation nomogram, a modified WHO sign‐in pause and a standardised local anaesthetic documentation sticker. At baseline, no record documented the maximum dose or recorded concentration using mg.ml −1 . After introducing the sign‐in pause and documentation sticker, statistical process control charts showed a sustained improvement in documentation, with rates > 95%. These low‐cost workflow interventions may support more standardised documentation and shared team awareness.
Featherstone et al. (Thu,) conducted a other in Adult surgical patients requiring local anaesthetics (n=357). Quality improvement interventions (staff education, dose-calculation nomogram, modified WHO sign-in pause, standardised documentation sticker) vs. Baseline (pre-intervention) was evaluated on Documentation of the maximum safe dose and drug concentration in mg.ml-1. A quality improvement initiative including a modified WHO sign-in pause and documentation sticker improved local anaesthetic documentation rates from 0% at baseline to >95%.