Mrs Kellie Preston1, Ms Carly Harrison1, Ms Breanna Tomkins1, Mr Brendan Humphries1
1Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service, Rockhampton, Australia
Biography:
Kellie Preston is an Advanced Allied Health Practitioner for Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service. Kellie graduated from the University of Newcastle with a Bachelor of Speech Pathology and has since delivered clinical services across a range of acute, subacute and community settings, both in Australia and the United Kingdom. More recently, Kellie has taken on healthcare leadership and multidisciplinary project management roles, delivering clinical redesign initiatives to support the translation of research in clinical practice in regional and rural settings.
Abstract:
Introduction:
Despite focus on 7-day allied health (AH) services to support growing hospital demand, there remains little agreement regarding best practice speech pathology (SP) acute service models. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare a 7-day rostered SP service with existing 7-day limited on-call SP model on demand, access and flow in a regional Australian hospital.
Method:
This retrospective cohort study analysed three patient cohorts (all patients seen by SP, all patients with dysphagia, and all patients with dysphagia who received SP care) were considered across two matched 6-month study periods to compare a limited 7-day on-call SP service (1 August 2021 – 31 January 2022) and the rostered 7-day service (1 August 2023 – 1 January 2024). Data was analysed for referral demand, hospital average length of stay (ALOS), readmissions within 28 days and weekend discharges.
Results:
1,839 patient journeys were analysed. The average age was 72.8 years, with 41.9 per cent female. Initial analysis highlighted a significant increase in demand for SP services during the rostered 7-day service period, specifically for patients with dysphagia. Both the rostered and limited on-call 7-day SP services positively supported hospital flow, with a significant reduction in ALOS for patients with dysphagia seen by SP. 7-day rostered SP services supported a greater proportion of weekend discharges for patients with dysphagia and those seen by SP during an acute hospital admission.
Detailed results to be presented.
Conclusion:
Improvements in patient flow demand management were realised using SP 7-day service models.