Evaluation of Quality of Care - Nurse Allied Health Clinic Programme, HA (QoC NAHC)

In the past two decades, as a result of population aging and shifts in patient needs, we have seen an increased demand for chronic disease management (CDM) delivered in the community. The Hong Kong Government introduced six nurse allied health clinics (NAHC) programme to assist the delivery of care to facilitate the increased demand on chronic disease management (CDM) in the community, which are currently being piloted within the government funded general outpatient clinics (GOPC) of the Hospital Authority (HA). These programmes are designed to enhance CDM in primary care through patient empowerment and use of multi-disciplinary nurse and allied health led teams, and aim for secondary prevention and treat-to-target for specific health conditions. This model of care has already been established in a number of countries, namely United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and United States, where multi-disciplinary allied-health clinics, nurse practitioners and nurse-led clinics have already been integrated into routine practice in primary care (Thomas, Cullum et al. 2000; Laurant, Reeves et al. 2005).

The six NAHC programmes which have been developed to date address falls prevention (FP), continence care (CC), mental wellness (MW), wound care (WC), respiratory disease management (respiratory clinic) and medication management and compliance (MMCC). The evaluation on the QOC is an essential part of the programme in order to inform future policy. he Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care (FMPC) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has been appointed by the HA to carry out the evaluation of the QOC of the programme.

The Action Learning and Audit Spiral methodologies to measure whether the target standard of care intended by the NAHC programme is achieved. Each NAHC participating clinic will be invited to complete a structured evaluation questionnaire. Anonymized data of all patients who have enrolled into the NAHC programme for more than 6 months will be included in the evaluation on the process and outcomes of care. Data on the process of care will be retrieved from the HA medical records.

In-depth study of NAHC CC programme: In order to compare the outcomes over time between subjects who have and who have not participated in the NAHC Continence Care Programme, three hundred and sixty control patients who have not been enrolled into the NAHC CC programme will be selected for the comparison in the outcomes of care. Subjects will be followed up by telephone to evaluate the effect of the programme in quality of life (QOL), patient enablement, and global rating of change in health condition at baseline , 12-month and 24-month after enrollment.

Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcomes are the proportion of participants who have received the planned process of care and have improvement in clinical outcomes.

Data Analysis: Descriptive statistics on proportions meeting the QOC criteria will be calculated. The changes in clinical, service and patient reported outcomes between baseline and discharge will assessed by paired sample t-test. The audit cycle will be repeated 4 times over a period of 5 years.

In-depth study of NAHC CC programme: the clinical outcomes between NAHC CC subjects and control group will be compared by independent sample t-test or Chi-square test.

Results: The QOC of the NAHC programme will be determined. Areas of deficiency and possible areas for quality enhancement will be identified.

Conclusion: The results of this study will provide empirical evidence on whether the HA's NAHC programmes enhance the QOC of their participating patients. This information will be used to guide service planning and policy decision making.