Skip to main content

Table 4 Activities undertaken by the Facilitator CogChamps

From: CogChamps: impact of a project to educate nurses about delirium and improve the quality of care for hospitalized patients with cognitive impairment

Education

Conduct small group delirium education sessions for nurses;

Provide 1:1 education at the bedside about delirium – its features and risk factors, and prevention and management strategies;

Educate nurses in the correct administration and interpretation of the short Confusion Assessment Method (CAM), [18, 19] to assess patients for delirium;

Educate nurses regarding the correct recording of a completed CAM assessment in the hospital’s electronic medical records system;

Provide education regarding appropriate interventions (including referral to medical staff) to manage patients with delirium;

Role model best practice care approaches to nurses e.g. how to re-orient a patient who appears confused, how to communicate with a patient with CI, how to calm a distressed patient, how to engage patients in meaningful activity and how to assess pain;

Prompt discussion of delirium as a vital sign at hand-over;

Promote staff awareness of Delirium checklists (e.g. PITCHED – see below) [22];

Assist staff in identifying modifiable triggers to behavioral symptoms in patients with CI;

Support

Assist nurses to provide direct patient care for patients with CI and demonstrate useful management strategies;

Assist nurses develop appropriate care plans for patients with CI;

Assist nurses contact patient’s families/ relatives to gather important information regarding the patient’s care preferences in order to provide person-centered care;

Assist CogChamps collect data for evaluation purposes (e.g. mini-audits of CAM use were conducted on two wards prior to and following the implementation of Action plans to assess whether any change had occurred);

Assist the CogChamps to access evidence-based resources to support patient care e.g. contacting hospital medical illustration unit to develop lanyards for the PITCHED tool [22];