AB054. SOH22ABS055. Five minutes acute surgical assessment unit (ASAU) situation awareness for everyone (SAFE) huddle

Background: Situation awareness for everyone (SAFE) initiative was taken by Royal College of Physician Ireland (RCPI) to improve patient safety and to identify vulnerable situations. This helps to take appropriate action in timely manner to void near miss and improve patient’s outcome. The aim of this quality improvement project is to implement SAFE huddle and to assess outcome.

Methods: This project was started in September 2021 in ASAU as quality improvement project. Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle was used to implement SAFE huddle in ASAU. This safety project was discussed with ASAU team. At baseline the patient’s handover is happening at nursing and doctors end. The collaboration between doctor and nursing staff as the baseline was missing. This initiative helped to improve communication at the start of shift and to help the plan and smooth running of ASAU for rest of the day. This SAFE huddle was planned in the morning at 8:30 am and involves clinical Nurse Manager (CNM) in-charge of zones and doctor in-charge. This SAFE huddle is assessed using observation tool and suggestions in cooperate to future huddle to make it better.

Results: These 5 minutes SAFE huddle helped in collaboration between nursing staff and doctors. The main information in cooperate are total number of patients as per specialities and intended outcome like seen, decision made and awaiting decision making. The other important information is patients need escalation of care and patients returns for investigations and reassessment. Key performance indicators for ASAU are also in cooperated in check list. This improves communication, identification and escalation of care of critical ill patients and plan for patient’s flow in ASAU for a day.

Conclusions: These 5 minutes ASAU SAFE huddle checklist helps in communication and a collaborating tool for doctor and nurses to improve patient’s safety.

Keywords: Patient safety; acute surgical assessment unit (ASAU); checklist; situation awareness for everyone (SAFE huddle); Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA cycle)