Interprofessional Education for Delirium Management: a Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

Background Implementation of delirium management in hospitals is a complex process, often challenging and requiring interprofessional and interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. This project aimed to assess whether a delirium-specific interprofessional education (IPE) course would empower clinicians to conduct quality improvement projects in their hospital. Method Quality-improvement project in a university-affiliated hospital. Clinicians (physicians, nurses, and therapists) attended a 2-day IPE course for delirium management certified by the German Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Participants developed projects for quality improvement and presented results in a meeting eight weeks later. Results In total, 16 clinicians (eight nurses, six therapists, two physicians) from six wards participated. Participants organised themselves into five project groups. Eight weeks after attending the training, four out of five groups presented projects with successful and ongoing implementation, such as establishing a hospital delirium expert panel, delirium flyers for relatives, an informational one-pager for clinicians across the hospital, and a teaching concept for training of therapists. Implementing the 4AT delirium assessment in electronic patient charts took longer, extending beyond the 8-week timeframe. Overall, clinicians were satisfied with the IPE course and reported they felt more competent to care for delirious patients. Conclusions The delirium IPE course motivated and enabled participating clinicians to develop and perform delirium-specific quality-improvement projects in their hospital. Further research is needed to evaluate the sustainability of these projects and to estimate the effect of influencing factors within the context of the culture and setting.