Nursing Outcomes

Major Interests

• Cost-effectiveness of current and new nursing care initiatives
• Patient education
• Patient satisfaction with care
• Predischarge functional assessment

Summary
The Nursing Unit is committed to the ongoing evaluation of their impact on patient care in terms of cost, patient health outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Collaboration between medical and nursing staff in the development of standardised treatment protocols and critical care nursing pathways has resulted in significant reductions in LOS and outliers. This Discipline was one of the first Orthopaedic and Trauma Centres in Australia to develop and implement these protocols and pathways and has consequently provided support for other national and international centres in developing similar systems.

The Nursing Unit has developed extensive pre-admission, inpatient and discharge education and rehabilitation programs with the aim of achieving improved patient satisfaction and health outcomes through greater patient awareness. Nursing examines other processes for containing the inpatient costs of orthopaedic and trauma patients and improving post-operative rehabilitation. Because of the high joint replacement activity in this institution, Nursing has a dedicated Joint Replacement Nurse position and a Joint Replacement Outcomes Coordinator. Apart from the clinical care and education responsibilities the nurses are responsible for the ongoing evaluation of joint replacement nursing activity, outcomes and cost-effectiveness.

For further information visit the Joanna Briggs Institute.

Director of Program
Ms Leonnie Lambert
Email: llambert@mail.rah.sa.gov.au

Location
Bice Building, RAH.

Staff
Project Nurse: Lorraine Butler
Email: lbutler@mail.rah.sa.gov.au