European Quality of Care Pathways Study on the Effect of Care Pathways on Interprofessional Teamwork (EQCP-TEAM) (EQCP-TEAM)

This is an interventional health services research trial for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease focused on measuring interprofessional teamwork, care pathways, team communication, team coordination, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Teams, Proximal Femur Fracture Teams Read More

Inclusion Criteria:

• Inclusion on cluster level requires the written agreement to participate form the hospital management, the medical head of the division and the head nurse
• Next to this, they have to agree that they will not develop and implement a care pathway for COPD- exacerbation of PFF within the time frame of the study when randomized in the control group
• Finally, the participating hospitals need an expected volume of more than one hundred COPD-exacerbation or PFF patients annually.

• To have a comparable sample across all clusters, the following inclusion criteria on individual level are set:

  1. All professionals that according to the medical head of the division and head nurse are member of the interprofessional team caring for COPD-exacerbation or PFF patients from admission until discharge out of the acute hospital ward
  2. To be part of the interprofessional care team is further conceptualized as being part of the group of clinicians and staff who have a shared clinical purpose and direct care responsibilities for the respective patient group during the set time period
  3. All individual participants need to be member of the team during one specific week, where patients are being followed for the two other trials of the EQCP-project (8). This specific week is chosen by the study coordinator and can be defined as an average week, with normal staff ratios
  4. Because we want to study interprofessional teamwork, each cluster is asked to minimally include the orthopedic surgeons/pneumologists, head nurse, nurses, physiotherapists and social workers in their sample. Based on their own judgment, the chief medical doctor, in consensus with the head nurse, can decide to include other professional groups in their sample
  5. In some hospitals COPD-exacerbation or PFF patients are being admitted at multiple nursing wards, e.g. due to capacity problems or other organizational issues. If that is the case, then the clusters are asked to only include these team members that are working on the ward where the respective patient groups are being admitted most frequently.

Exclusion Criteria:

• All team members that are not working (e.g. on leave) during the chosen week
• All team members who are only temporarily part of the team (e.g. student nurses in training).