Co-designed outpatient clinic with consumerns for a patient and familiy centred approach

Abstract

The Super Saturday Clinic provided patients and families with the opportunity to access a range of services on the same day. Family feedback demonstrated the importance of integrated care as families were appreciative to access services all in one day and in the same clinic. Working closely with consumers, the co-designed clinic was structured around patient centred care, and proved to be a great success. The Super Saturday Clinic concept emerged from consumer’s feedback that told us how many families travel to attend multiple appointments at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital. These appointments are often scheduled across different days, resulting in travel costs, plus time away from work, school and family. They also noted that appointments scheduled across several days result in service gaps and missed opportunities for education. The co-designed outpatient clinic with consumers saw a range of clinicians come together to pilot a clinic outside of business hours on a Saturday. Current clinics are not always integrated with Allied Health who can be contacted on an ad-hoc basis. Alternative clinical practices were explored with interdisciplinary team work aligning with the super clinic which supported multiple disciplinary coordination and integration of services to meet the needs of patients and families in one clinic. [i] Two clinics were piloted for patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritic and inflammatory bowel disease. The clinic took three months of planning and coordination by the Innovation Change and Redesign Excellence (iCARE) unit. This team provides structure to enable transformation of health services within Children's Health Queensland (CHQ). Their involvement in the super clinic allowed seamless coordination as they were unrelated to a clinical team. The clinic was held in February 2017, with consultations being provided by the medical teams, clinical nurses, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, social work, welfare, pharmacy and immunisation services. Overall, 119 consultations were delivered within 6 hours. There were 20 patients who attended, 18 of which had 4 or more consults and 5 of these patients had 7 or 8 consults. Families also had access with Non-Government Organisations to learn about community support. Since the pilot clinic, the primary driver has been to incorporate Allied Health permanently into existing clinics which is a sustainable approach compared to the current ad-hoc arrangement. The patient cohorts for the clinic were ideal as they had high proportion of Allied Health involvement which would be criteria for transferability between specialties. The lessons learnt focused on the need for a single coordinator and to allow sufficient time for clinic closure activities. A barrier to delivering Saturday clinics is dependent on the funding arrangements to support additional clinics which are reviewed yearly with Queensland Health. Families noted that they appreciated having access to services that they previously may not have seen. They also valued the availability of Saturday appointments reducing time off school and work while allowing other family members to attend. References : 1- Sandall S, McLean ME, Smith BJ. Recommended Practices in Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education. Longmont and Denver: Sopris West and DEC; 2000.