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Is a doctor needed in the adult ENT pre–admission clinic?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2006

M. Daniel  and
A.R. Banerjee
M. Daniel
Affiliation:
Department of Otorhinolaryngology / Head & Neck Surgery, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK
A.R. Banerjee
Affiliation:
Department of Otorhinolaryngology / Head & Neck Surgery, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK
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Abstract

Objectives: Pre-admission clinics are traditionally run jointly by nurses and doctors. Within an adult ENT pre-admission clinic, we wished to assess what doctors added tonurses’ pre-clerking, to determine whether doctors were actually needed in the clinic.

Methods: Prospective study,looking at how often doctors, seeing patients after ward-based nurses, changed or added to clerking or tests as organized by nurses.

Results: Out of 184 patients, doctors changed or added to nurses’ clerking or planned investigations in 47 patients (26 per cent), making 64 different changes. The commonest reasonsfor changes were ordering blood tests (22 changes), chest X-rays (eight), cancelling due to hypertension (seven), altering drug history (five) and requesting electrocardiograms (five changes).

Conclusion: Most changes made by doctors could be eliminated by designing a pre-admission clinic protocol that could easily be used by nurses. We recommend that all ENT departments consider implementing nurse-led pre-admission clinics.

Keywords

Diagnostic TestsRoutineOtorhinolaryngologic Surgical ProceduresPreoperative CareSurgeryOrganization and Administration
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Laryngology & Otology , Volume 118 , Issue 10 , October 2004 , pp. 796 - 798
Copyright
© 2004 Royal Society of Medicine Press

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