Improving interdepartmental communication following a patient death
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Improving interdepartmental communication following a patient death

Nina Whittle Trainee advanced clinical practitioner, emergency department, Lewisham Hospital, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, England

When patients die in emergency departments (EDs), it is important to record information that can be shared with staff in other departments, such as the mortuary and bereavement office. This can be a time-consuming exercise but, if information is omitted, it can increase families' distress by delaying documents such as death certificates. This article describes how a new, tick-box-style death-in-department checklist was introduced in a London hospital adult ED to increase and improve communication and information sharing between the ED, the mortuary and the bereavement office. Audits undertaken before and after the introduction of the checklist show a 75% increase in the recording and sharing of information between relevant departments. The positive effect of the new checklist has led to its introduction in another, associated ED, and it has been incorporated into the trust's end of life care policy.

Nursing Management. 24, 4, 23-27. doi: 10.7748/nm.2017.e1586

Correspondence

nina.whittle@nhs.net

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 13 October 2016

Accepted: 28 March 2017

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