The Successful Journey Back to Health: Implementing Routine Follow-up Care for Ostomy Patients

Purpose: The objective of this poster is to demonstrate how a structured quality improvement program, implemented by a WOC Nurse, can impact outcomes for ostomy patients.

Statement of Problem: Although pre-operative visits and home health services were routine for ostomy patients, follow-up in an outpatient clinic, was not. Instead, patients were being seen with leakage and peri-stomal skin problems and in "crisis" rather than routinely.

Design: A quality improvement program aimed at providing structured follow-up for ostomy patients was implemented. Components of this structured program already in place were pre-operative counseling, inpatient teaching, home health referrals, and enrollment in a manufactures discharge program. New to the program was to pre-arrange outpatient visits for follow-up. Implementation of these outpatient appointments helped increase the patients self confidence and independence. This in turn decreased the number of patients who experienced leakage with their pouching system.

Conclusions: This structured program will be presented including data on the number of patients seen pre-operatively, referred to Home health, enrolled in a manufacturers discharge program and seen for follow-up after being discharged from home health.

References:

1. Ratliff C, Haugen R. Selecting a tool for assessing health-related quality of life in ostomates. J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2013;40(5):462-467.
2. Ratliff, Catherine, R. Early peristomal skin complications reported by WOC nurses. J Wound Ostomy Continence Nurs. 2010; 37(5):505-510.
3. Wick E, Shore A, Hirose K, Ibrahim A, Gearhart S, Efron J, ...Makary M. Readmission rates and cost following colorectal surgery. Diseases of the Colon and Rectum. 2011;54(12):1475-1479.