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The Daily Plan
Introduction |
Pilot Tests |
Future Efforts and Focus
This initiative enhances patient safety by involving patients in their care: A single document is provided to them that outlines what can be expected on a specific day of hospitalization.
A facility can customize the document and include a number of items relevant to care:
- Diagnostic tests
- Medications
- Nutrition
- Appointments
- Allergies
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The plan received a positive response from patients and staff during pilot tests at five facilities.
Because staff members reviewed the plan with patients each day, it often led patients to ask for more information. For instance, if a doctor told a patient he had ordered a lab test – and the test wasn’t listed in the plan – this might prompt the veteran to ask about it.
During pilot, staff members also worked with patients to identify potential issues, such an ensuring medication prescriptions and dosages were correct. Nationally, adverse medication events significantly contribute to increased morbidity and mortality in American hospitals. Working with patients on a daily basis to ensure their medications are correct is particularly important.
When veterans were surveyed during the pilot tests about the plan’s usefulness to them, 50 percent noted that "if my medical care was different from what I expected it to be, I brought up the question because I had the Daily Plan."
For our patient safety program to be truly effective, we need our veterans to be fully informed and actively involved in their care. The Daily Plan supports this effort by empowering veterans – and their families – to become engaged in their medical care.
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Along with implementing the plan at VA facilities nationwide, efforts are underway to make the terminology used more patient friendly:
- Use "as needed" instead of PRN, an abbreviation of the Latin term pro re nata, commonly used in medicine to mean "as needed" or "as the situation arises," but literally meaning "for the thing born."
- Use "three times a day" instead TID, the abbreviation of the Latin term ter in die, also commonly used in medicine and literally meaning "three times a day."
Enhancing and promoting communication with patients is in direct support of the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goal 13: Encourage the active involvement of patients and their families in the patients own care as a patient safety strategy. This is exactly what the Daily Plan was designed to do for our veterans.
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National Center for Patient Safety