Bronglais Hospital awarded for commitment to patient safety

Bronglais Hospital is celebrating after being named as a National Joint Registry (NJR) Quality Data Provider after successfully completing a national programme of local data audits.

The hospital’s orthopaedic team received the award for elective surgery. The NJR monitors the performance of hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacement operations to improve clinical outcomes for the benefit of patients, clinicians and industry. The registry collects high quality orthopaedic data in order to provide evidence to support patient safety, standards in quality of care, and overall cost effectiveness in joint replacement surgery.

The ‘NJR Quality Data Provider’ certificate scheme was introduced to offer hospitals a blueprint for reaching high quality standards relating to patient safety and reward those who have met registry targets in this area. One of the targets which hospitals are required to complete is compliance with the NJR’s mandatory national audit aimed at assessing data completeness and quality within the registry. The NJR Data Quality Audit investigates the accurate number of joint replacement procedures submitted to the registry compared to the number carried out and recorded in the local hospital Patient Administration System. The audit ensures that the NJR is collecting and reporting upon the most complete, accurate data possible across all hospitals performing joint replacement operations, including Bronglais Hospital.

Joint hospital directors Annette Snell and Said Awad commented: “Improving patient safety is of the upmost importance and something all staff take very seriously, so we are very pleased to be receiving a data quality award from the NJR.

“This is due to co-ordinated teamwork from the orthopaedic department at Bronglais Hospital, theatres and clinical audit team for recording the data for all our joint arthroplasty patients. We have worked hard to improve the timing of our data collection, consent and accuracy. The orthopaedic surgeons take and record consent for the NJR at the pre-op stage, they record data at the time of surgery. This is collected by theatre administrators and sent to the arthroplasty physiotherapist, who submits the data and works with the audit department to check and match it for the end of year report.

“We are proud to have a close-knit supportive team, and this is proof of our success.”

National Joint Registry Medical Director, Tim Wilton, said: “Congratulations to colleagues at Bronglais Hospital. The Quality Data Provider Award demonstrates the high standards being met towards ensuring compliance with the NJR and is often a reflection of strong departmental efforts to achieve such status. Registry data now provides an important source of evidence for regulators, such as the Care Quality Commission, to inform their judgements about services, as well as being a fundamental driver to inform improved quality of care for patients.”