The Development of Emergency Patient Referral Guideline in Community Hospital

Emergency Patient Referral Guideline

Abstract

Patient referral is important process for emergency patients' safety. This research and development aimed to development guideline of emergency patient referrals at Saklek Hospital, Phichit province by using the concept of continuous improvement: FOCUS-PDCA. The population consisted of two nurses of developmental team and 11 referral nurses of operational team. Data were collected from February to April 2023. Research instruments included focus group questionnaires, emergency patient referral guidelines total 119 items, observation checklist referral guidelines, and adverse events record forms. All research instruments were validated by five experts. The content validity indices of the focus group questionnaires were 1.O, the observation checklist for referral guidelines were 1.0, and the adverse events record forms were 1.0. The interrater reliability of the observation checklist for referral guidelines was 1.0. Data were presented as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results showed the score of practices according to the emergency patients' referral guidelines was complete and accurate at 99.7%. The incidence of patients getting worse during referral was one time and no other incidence. This study raises the awareness of referral nurses in practice and nurse administrators can use the observation checklist and adverse events record form to monitor and evaluate outcomes of emergency patient referrals.