Enhancing Carer Friendly Health Practices: Health staff working as a team to better support carers
Sydney West Area Health Service
This project was entered in the 2007 NSW Health Awards, Building a Sustainable Health Workforce category.
Contact: Rosio Cordova
Abstract
In order to improve the way acute health staff identify, support, inform, communicate with and involve carers, enhancing carer friendly health practices was initiated. Support from key stakeholders was sought and the core principles of clinical practice improvement methodology applied.
Effective carer support is the responsibility of all members of the health care team. Analysis of feedback obtained from carers accessing Nepean Hospital concluded that carers have very high expectations about how they will be supported, communicated with and involved in acute care processes. On average less than 50% of these expectations were met during an episode of care. It was also identified that carers are not routinely identified on admission and that health staff had a poor knowledge of the services and supports available to support carers.
Post implementation of innovative strategic interventions has seen a significant increase in the number of carers being formally identified on admission.
The full entry document can be downloaded in the formats listed below:
Enhancing Carer Friendly Health Practices: Health staff working as a team to better support carers (135KB)
Enhancing Carer Friendly Health Practices: Health staff working as a team to better support carers (73KB)
