Objectives
To investigate how patients prefer to be addressed by healthcare providers and to assess their knowledge of their attending medical team's identity in an Australian Hospital.
Setting
Single-centre, large tertiary hospital in Australia.
Participants
300 inpatients were included in the survey. Patients were selected in a sequential, systematic and whole-ward manner. Participants were excluded with significant cognitive impairment, non-English speaking, under the age of 18 years or were too acutely unwell to participate. The sample demographic was predominately an older population of Anglo-Saxon background.
Primary and secondary outcome measures
Patients preferred mode of address from healthcare providers including first name, title and second name, abbreviated first name or another name. Whether patients disliked formal address of title and second name. Secondarily, patient knowledge of their attending medical team members name and role and if correct, what position within the medical hierarchy they held.
Results
Over 99% of patients prefer informal address with greater than one-third having a preference to being called a name other than their legal first name. 57% of patients were unable to correctly name a single member of their attending medical team.
Conclusions
These findings support patient preference of informal address; however, healthcare providers cannot assume that a documented legal first name is preferred by the patient. Patient knowledge of their attending medical team is poor and suggests current introduction practices are insufficient.
The introduction of the National Service Standards prompted an organisation-wide audit of discharge summary practices against the external criterion. There was substantial variation in the organisation's practices. The Standards and the current audit results highlight an opportunity for the organisation to enhance and standardise discharge summary practices and improve communication with general practice.
Purpose:
To determine the frequency and significance of corneal complications at presentation of involutional entropion in an Australian population. Patient demographics and duration of symptoms were collated to assess how these factors related to presentations.
Methods:
Case records were retrospectively interrogated at an Oculoplastic Ophthalmology practice over a 15-year period to identify patients with lower eyelid involutional entropion. All patients had ophthalmic examination by an ophthalmologist. Patients meeting inclusion criteria had data collected including detailed assessment of corneal examination findings.
Results:
The final cohort included 203 patients of which 50.7% were male. The mean age was 75.1 years. Cornea findings at presentation included superficial punctate keratopathy (69%), no change (25.6%), corneal ulcer (4%), and other (1%). One percent of patients had vision loss attributable to complications of entropion. Range of duration of symptoms was 2 weeks to 6 years with a mean of 11.5 months.
Conclusions:
At presentation, involutional entropion has mild corneal findings with 95.1% of patients demonstrating superficial punctate keratopathy or normal corneal epithelium. Vision loss is a rare complication and was observed in 1% of patients in this study, all with preexisting corneal pathology.
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