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Evaluation Of A Patient Clinical Pathway

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EVALUATION OF A PATIENT CLINICAL PATHWAY IN A CLINICAL PHYSIOLOGY DEPARTMENT INTRODUCTION Health-care professionals regularly request systematic evidence-based guidance to facilitate decision-making in the provision of clinical care. For this, adequate support from hospital management is needed to implement changes within sectors of the NHS. An approach to the provision of such guidance is the use of clinical pathways as an implementation tool. Clinical pathways are structured multidisciplinary care plans containing detailed essential steps in the care of patients with specific problems (1). Overall, the degree of impact they have on patient outcomes, length of hospital stay and costs appear to be favourable and are established and…show more content…
In my opinion, it is advantageous to have such guidelines that are reviewed yearly (‘Chest pain of recent onset’ was reviewed in December 2014) as it ensures the best care is provided for the patient, as well as highlighting areas of improvement for the multidisciplinary team. There are of course drawbacks to such a system of management based on set guidelines, as they may not always cater for all patients; examples of which will be discussed further on in this essay. RAPID ACCESS CHEST PAIN CLINIC Prior to beginning the journey with my chosen patient, I thought it was necessary to understand a little more about the RACPC itself and its significance within the department. Being a medium sized department (maximum of 25 members of staff) with one catheterization lab, I was expecting a sensible amount of demand for this service considering the resources. I discovered that at times patients were waiting up to 6 weeks for an appointment with the specialist nurse in the clinic, once the GP referral had been made. RACPC is solely one person’s responsibility and the clinic runs from Monday to Thursday every week in the mornings. The nurse manages her own correspondence, so as well as having consultations with up to 10 patients a day, she organises the diagnostic tests and writes up all the relevant paperwork. The fact that the NICE guidelines recommend that patients should be seen within the first two weeks of referral when assessing chest pain, suggests to me
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