Glenfield Clinical Decisions Unit – The Ambulatory Pathway for cardio/respiratory patients

About the intervention

The Clinical Decisions Unit (CDU) is a busy admissions unit at the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, specialising in cardiac and respiratory conditions. It accepts patients from GP’s, transfers from the Emergency Department, and direct 999 calls and is also a self-referral service for patients with respiratory conditions

When patients arrive on CDU they are triaged/streamed by a nurse to determine how quickly they will see a doctor. This is a decision based on clinical need i.e. sick patients will be seen first. Patients initially wait in a chair. Patients are clerked and have initial tests and diagnostics. Those that require a bed will be transferred onto the main ward area as soon as a bed is available. Patients not needing a bed will wait in a communal seated waiting area whilst tests are processed and clinical decisions are made to admit them to the unit or discharge home directly.

Project Aim

The evaluation focused on the effectiveness of the triage pathway for patients, from when they arrived at the unit to when they were either found a bed on the unit, transferred to a ward elsewhere in the hospital or discharged.

The evaluation of this service has now been completed.

See the model here

 

Read the Report of SIMTEGR8 Project Workshops – Glenfield Clinical Decisions Unit (CDU)