AB118. To maximise efficiency in the traditional trauma pathway

Background: Any healthcare system is constantly trying to cater for more people more quickly with limited resources. As such, a strive toward efficiency is always being sought. There have been recent advances in the trauma pathway as a way of avoiding overcrowded fracture clinics with delayed presentations such as the Trauma Assessment Clinics that have been set up around the country, other ways of maximise efficiencies must be sought in traditional pathways too.

Methods: Data pertaining to the fracture clinic attendances was sought as well as number of discharges and review appointments. Other factors including the number of senior house offices (SHOs), registrars, specialist registrars (SpRs) and Consultants as well as the presence of a Trauma advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) present in the fracture clinic was noted. Start and end times of the clinic were examined.

Results: All statistical analyses were performed using statistics software Prism 7 GraphPad (GraphPad Software, California USA). For analysis of two variables a paired student’s T test was used and where three variables were present a repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed.

Conclusions: It was seen that the higher number of senior doctors (SpRs, Consultants) as well as the presence of a dedicated Trauma ANP in the clinic had an effect on the number of review appointments booked as well as whether or not the clinic ran over time or not.

Keywords: Trauma pathway; fracture clinic; efficiency