Position: Summer Intern Casual, Port Moody BC

Project Name: Delirium: Prescribing Practices Throughout the Patient Journey

Location: Eagle Ridge Hospital (475 Guildford Way, Port Moody, BC V3H 3W9)

Time Commitment: Duration: June 3 – August 30, 2019. Maximum hours 225 total hours. Hours of work will be flexible, with a goal of approximately 20 to 24 hours per week. It is expected that the project will spread over the funded dates during the summer. The student needs to be available to schedule team meetings and in-person updates to team members.

PROJECT SUMMARY

Delirium is an acute confusional state that affects approximately 30% of our acute medical in- patients. Delirium can have devastating effects on a patient’s quality and length of life. Antipsychotics are often used to manage patients in distress from their symptoms or at risk of injury. When used at low doses, they are thought to decrease the duration of delirium. However, there are safety concerns with anti-psychotics, including an increased risk of death. Anti-psychotics are also associated with increased stroke rates in elderly patients with delirium.

The purpose of this project is to assess anti-psychotic and anti-cholinergic prescribing practices in acute medical patients with delirium by following the journey of patients with delirium from pre-admission through the hospital stay to post-admission. This project will assess patient experience with anti- psychotic and anti-cholinergic medication prescribing practices.

Delirium is a major regional focus in Fraser Health (FHA) as it is a Patient Safety Priority for 2018-2020. This proposal is supported by the FHA Regional Delirium Steering Committee and has local support at Eagle Ridge Hospital (ERH). The overarching aim of the FHA Regional Delirium Steering Committee is to decrease the prevalence and morbidity of Delirium by 5% for medical in-patients in FHA in 2019.

The student will participate in multiple stages of the project from planning through presentation of results (including the development of chart audit tool, data collection, analysis, interpretation and a storyboard poster). The student will be developing and using a chart audit tool for an electronic retrospective chart review of randomly selected patients coded for delirium who were admitted in January 2017 to December 2018 from multiple (4) sites in FHA. It is expected that the chart audit tool development will take approximately 1 week, and the chart audit itself approximately 5 weeks. The remaining weeks will be spent on data analysis, graphing and presentation preparation.

This project is integral to the Fraser Health Authority’s ability to incorporate pharmacological data into Regional Delirium QI work. The patient journey is of profound importance to patients. This project looks at the patient journey through a pharmacological lens.

Advice and support will be provided by the supervisor and team.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS

The student needs to be fluent in oral and written English and be comfortable using Excel spreadsheets. Knowledge of basic medical terminology and pharmacology would be helpful.

Send resume and cover letter in a single PDF document by Monday, May 6, 2019 to: [email protected]

Please indicate the project name(s) that you would like to be considered for when applying.

Only short‐listed candidates will be contacted.