Miss Claire Walsh1, Ms Katherine Muller1, Ms Tahlia Farragher1, Ms Lauren Balcombe1, Mrs Sara Calthorpe1, Dr Lara Kimmel1
1Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Claire Walsh is a dedicated dietitian with over five years of experience working across various units at Alfred Health. Throughout her career, she has developed a strong passion for providing the best nutrition care to trauma and orthopaedic patients.
Claire finds her work incredibly rewarding, knowing her contributions make a significant impact on patients’ health and well-being.
In addition to her clinical expertise, Claire has actively participated in quality improvement projects including weigh rounds with the multidisciplinary team, contributing to enhanced patient care and clinical outcomes.
Abstract:
Background:
Regular weighing of patients is a critical hospital key performance indicator (KPI) for identifying nutritional risks, medication dosing, and assessing nutrition interventions. However, maintaining consistent weekly weighing on wards is challenging.
Methods:
Baseline data was collected in August 2024 to determine percentage of patients who had weekly weight collected on a trauma ward at The Alfred, Melbourne. A multidisciplinary team, consisting of senior nursing staff, a physiotherapist, and a dietitian, was formed to conduct weekly "weigh rounds" on this ward and data was collected. The process involved: 1) dietitian screening patients to determine weight recorded in the past week, 2) discussing barriers with the bedside nurse, and 3) collaborating to find solutions. Data on barriers, equipment needs and recorded weights were collected. Pre- and post-intervention audits were conducted on trauma patients outside the specialized ward for comparison.
Results:
Baseline data showed that 46% of patients had weekly weights recorded. A survey of nursing staff (n=24) identified barriers to weekly weighing, including competing priorities (40%), time constraints (28%), and lack of proper weighing equipment (16%). After 15 weigh rounds, weekly weight completion increased to 72%. An additional 7 patients were weighed within 24 hours, bringing the completion rate to 89.5%. For trauma patients outside the specialized ward, the completion rate remained low at 42%.
Conclusion:
A dietetic-led multidisciplinary weigh round almost doubled the weekly weight completion on a specialised trauma ward from 46% to 89.5%. Further research will explore the impact of this intervention on malnutrition and other hospital-acquired complications.