ABSTRACT
Background: Performance evaluation in the allied healthcare education sector is complex, making it essential for policymakers and managers to approach it comprehensively and thoughtfully to understand their performance. Hence, the development and monitoring of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in this domain must be considered one of the key priorities for the policymakers in AHIs. Aim: This study aims to develop a framework for the AHIs to extract and profile the indicators, measure, and report the results appropriately. Methods: The authors adopted a general review of the literature approach to study the primary goals of the institutional KPI framework, emphasizing the need for benchmarking while implementing KPIs and how to track performance using a KPI dashboard. Results: The study provides the scope, relevant KPI categories, and a list of KPIs for evaluating the effectiveness of allied healthcare programs. The study findings also emphasized the need for benchmarking the KPIs and establishing a KPI dashboard while measuring and monitoring performance. Conclusion: KPIs are considered an invaluable tool that contributes immensely to the performance monitoring process of AHIs, irrespective of the specialties. This helps to identify and guide AHIs for developing KPIs and the associated minimum data set to measure organizational performance and monitor the quality of teaching and learning. In addition, the KPI framework reported in this study is a tool to assist performance monitoring that can subsequently contribute to the overall quality of AHIs.
ABSTRACT
Background: Optimizing patient outcomes and reducing complications require constant monitoring and effective collaboration among critical care professionals. The aim of the present study was to describe the perceptions of physician directors, respiratory therapist managers and nurse managers regarding the key roles, responsibilities and clinical decision-making related to mechanical ventilation and weaning in adult Intensive Care Units (ICUs) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Methods: A multi-centre, cross-sectional self-administered survey was sent to physician directors, respiratory therapist managers and nurse managers of 39 adult ICUs at governmental tertiary referral hospitals in 13 administrative regions of the KSA. The participants were advised to discuss the survey with the frontline bedside staff to gather feedback from the physicians, respiratory therapists and nurses themselves on key mechanical ventilation and weaning decisions in their units. We performed T-test and non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests to test the physicians, respiratory therapists, and nurses' autonomy and influence scores, collaborative or single decisions among the professionals. Moreover, logistic regressions were performed to examine organizational variables associated with collaborative decision-making. Results: The response rate was 67% (14/21) from physician directors, 84% (22/26) from respiratory therapist managers and 37% (11/30) from nurse managers. Physician directors and respiratory therapist managers agreed to collaborate significantly in most of the key decisions with limited nurses' involvement (P<0.01). We also found that physician directors were perceived to have greater autonomy and influence in ventilation and waning decision-making with a mean of 8.29 (SD±1.49), and 8.50 (SD±1.40), respectively. Conclusion: The key decision-making was implemented mainly by physicians and respiratory therapists in collaboration. Nurses had limited involvement. Physician directors perceived higher autonomy and influence in ventilatory and weaning decision-making than respiratory therapist managers and nurse managers. A critical care unit's capacity to deliver effective and safe patient care may be improved by increasing nurses' participation and acknowledging the role of respiratory therapists in clinical decision-making regarding mechanical ventilation and weaning.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 infections are seen across all age groups, but they have shown to have a predisposition for the elderly and those with underlying comorbidities. Patients with severe COVID-19 infections and comorbidities are more prone to respiratory distress syndrome, mechanical ventilator use, and ultimately succumb to these complications. Little evidence exists of the prevalence of underlying lung comorbidities among COVID-19 patients and associated mortality. We performed a systematic review of the literature including PubMed (Medline), Embase (Ovid), Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library. The last date for our search was April 29, 2020. We included all original research articles on COVID-19 and calculated prevalence of chronic lung disease patients among COVID-19 patients using random effects model. Further, we assessed for mortality rates among COVID-19 patients associated with these lung comorbidities. The authors identified 29 articles that reported prevalence of chronic lung conditions among COVID-19 patients. Among those, 26 were from China and 3 from the United States. The pooled prevalence of lung comorbidities including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and lung cancer was 3% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0%-14%), 2.2% (95% CI = 0.02%-0.03%), and 2.1% (95% CI = 0.00%-0.21%), respectively. Mortality rates associated with these comorbidities was 30% (41/137) for COPD and 19% (7/37) for lung cancer respectively. No mortality rates were reported for patients with asthma. This study offers latest evidence of prevalence of chronic lung conditions among patients with COVID-19. Asthma, followed by COPD and lung cancer, was the most common lung comorbidity associated with COVID-19, while the higher mortality rate was found in COPD. Future studies are needed to assess other lung comorbidities and associated mortality among patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
