Description

Quantifying the specific tasks of palliative care and the time involved in completing these tasks in a metric that resonates with administrative personnel is critical to the on-going institutional support needed for sustaining and growing a palliative care program. A series of time studies has been completed by the medical staff at Akron Children’s Hospital Palliative Care Team every 6 months over the last 2 years. These data points provide concrete descriptors of the specific tasks the palliative care medical team completes. Data points are self-reported every 30 minutes over a one-month period and are grouped into 20 identified palliative care interventions/tasks. These studies, including trends over time, have allowed for changes in team interaction and function which have increased efficiency without impact on patient care or satisfaction. This information has also been useful outside the team itself in justifying to the organization the number of staff required to adequately meet the needs of pediatric patients with chronic, complex and/or life threatening illnesses.

This project demonstrates easy, cost effective strategies for quantifying tasks, projects, patient interaction and inter-team communications. Simple data points can demonstrate the impact a team can have on the population of patients they serve.