The impact of structured pediatric records on documentation quality and staff performance satisfaction in a district general hospital, Sri Lanka

Abstract

TheQuality medical record-keeping facilitates the management of patient information fin better quality care. The preprinted structured format of record-keeping could improve (the documentation quality which has been proved by overseas studies. The aim of this study was"to evaluate the impacts of structured pediatric records on the documentation ijtuilily as well as the performance satisfaction of the staff in a Sri Lankan district general honpatal, A prospective comparative study was carried out in two paediatric units of Ampara | istrict General Hospital. One hundred preprinted structured records (one record has a set of six forms: admission record, daily status sheet, drug chart, observation form, investigation form and discharge summary) introduced to patients admitted to one unit (intervention group) were compared with the traditional free text records of 100 patients of the other unit (control group) over a period of two months. The major outcome icasures were the completeness and legibility of documentation which were scored on a _ ranking scale. Mann-Whitney U test. was used to compare both groups. A staff. perlormance.sctisfaction survey using a self administered questionnaire was carried out at the end of the study among the nurses and doctors those who involved in documenting on the newly introduced structured records. The implementation of the structured records had positively influenced the documentation quality as well as the staff performance in many aspects. In terms of completeness the daily status sheet, investigation chart and discharge summary improved significantly (p< 0.0000) and with regard to legibility observation chart, drug chart , investigation chart and the discharge summary showed significant improvement (p< 0.0000) in the intervention group .The satisfaction was high among staff on newly introduced format of documentation during their routine ward work. Replacing the traditional paediatric records with preprinted structured records would improve the documentation quality and staff performance satisfaction in future.