LAUSR

Baseline data from October 2019 to July 2020 were reviewed. Patients who had a delay of > 60 minutes in antibiotic administration were chosen to understand the causes of process variation. The data reviewed revealed non-compliance with the benchmark, ie average time < 60 minutes. A team with multidisciplinary expertise analysed the preliminary data and initiated a quality improvement project. A four-stage approach, the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle, was undertaken to improve the service and resolve the issues faced. 8 The PDCA was aimed to mitigate the identified reasons of process variation, ie delays in patient assessment, delays in antibiotic prescription, delays in dispensing, transportation of prepared medicine and delays in administration. The team proposed multiple strategies to reduce the process variation, including but not limited to the amendment of hospital electronic system (HIS) medication module, defined timelines for each service, dose banding, and educating the relevant staff members to ensure timely communication. Statistical analysis, interrupted time series (ITS) analysis, was performed on two cohorts (pre-intervention and post-intervention phases) to study the effectiveness of interventions. R-software was used to conduct the analyses. All tests were two-sided, and a statistical significance level of 5% was used. Authors: