November 2nd 2017 Tallaght Hospital has released its 2016 Quality Report, highlighting its commitment to providing patients with the highest possible standards of care across three key areas: Quality, Safety and Risk Management.
Acknowledging both the Hospital’s ‘People Caring For People’ ethos and its ‘Zero Harm’ programme, the report also reflects Tallaght’s core values: respect for patient autonomy; respect for each other; partnership and teamwork; fairness and equality; caring and openness.
As part of its patient-centred culture, staff at Tallaght Hospital are committed to the development of initiatives which not only ensure the delivery of consistently high quality service but also potential improvements to services. Underpinning the Hospital’s supportive, open and learning culture, staff are actively encouraged to voice any concerns and flag potential risks where appropriate.
The report describes a number of impressive highlights during the year across the full spectrum of quality including the following:
• 48 registered locally-initiated clinical audits as well as eight Hospital-directed clinical audits in areas such as sepsis, surgical safety, malnutrition, point of care glucometry, safe use of bed rails and pressure ulcers
• A programme of internal audits covering many important areas such as procurement, governance and complaints management
• The development of the Hospital’s ‘Academic Hub’ intranet site.
• Continuation of volunteer led patient surveys, focussing on areas like food quality, hand hygiene, paediatric outpatients and patient satisfaction
• Ongoing work by the Patient Advocacy Department to acknowledge, advise and act upon patients’ and/or their relatives’ experiences, both positive and negative, during their journey through the hospital. 85% of the 1,208 issues logged in 2016 were responded to within 30 working days
• Use of Quality Dashboards to monitor the quality of care provided as well as a Nursing Instrument of Quality Assurance (NIQA) system to measure quality of nursing care every two months
• A visit from HIQA which highlighted numerous successes in the area of nutrition and hydration
• Five high profile ‘Zero Harm’ campaigns covering infection control, sepsis, pressure ulcers and nutrition and hydration
• Improving hand hygiene compliance rates from 72% in May 2014 to 89% in May 2016
• Third highest flu vaccination rates in the country (46%)
• No serious reportable events
Many quality improvement successes are described throughout the report from all parts of the Hospital whilst recognising that even more was achieved.
Mairéad Shields, Chair of the Quality, Safety & Risk Board Committee, commented: “This report demonstrates that robust structures and processes are in place to ensure patients at Tallaght Hospital continue to receive the highest standards of care. Staff have demonstrated a firm commitment to our patient-centred culture and I would like to commend their dedication in this regard.”
Dr. Daragh Fahey, Director of Quality, Safety & Risk Management at Tallaght Hospital, added: “Our aim is to help staff deliver the best quality of care possible through a combination of supportive policies, systems and structures and by promoting a patient-centred culture. This is the essence of a high quality learning healthcare provider such as Tallaght Hospital. Investing in quality is critically important to ensure that our patients receive the best care while being treated with the respect, kindness and dignity they deserve and also to provide a positive working atmosphere for our staff, who work tirelessly to ensure this is delivered.”
The Tallaght Hospital Quality Report 2016 can be viewed here
About Tallaght Hospital
Tallaght Hospital is one of Ireland’s largest acute teaching hospitals, providing child-health, adult, psychiatric and age-related healthcare on one site. The Hospital has 495 adult beds and 67 paediatric bed with 2,600 people on staff. The Hospital is a provider of local, regional and national specialities. It is also a national urology centre, the second largest provider of dialysis services in the country and a regional orthopaedic trauma centre.
Tallaght Hospital is one of the two main teaching hospitals of Trinity College Dublin - specialising in the training and professional development of staff in areas such as nursing, health and social care professionals, emergency medicine and surgery, amongst many others. Tallaght Hospital is part of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group which serves a population of over 1.2 million across seven counties.
A new satellite centre is to be built at Tallaght Hospital as part of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital project as a key element of an integrated clinical network for paediatric services nationally.
The Hospital’s Emergency Departments catered for 49,512 Adult Attendances and 33,717 Paediatric Attendances in 2016. A further 252,418 patients were treated through the Hospital’s adult and paediatric outpatient clinics in 2016. The Hospital’s operations are supported by 200 general practitioners in surrounding communities.
