Delirium prevention interventions added to select order sets July 14

Now it’s easy to incorporate into routine care

Delirium prevention practices can vary widely and depend heavily on the individual knowledge and habits of providers and nurses.

A recent Physicians Leadership Institute (PLI) group, which included Lori Porter, MD; Nicholas Sassen, MD; Katelin Pippert; Heidi Komada; and Jade Bryant, with coaches Shawna Paslay and Stephen Kearns, focused on delirium prevention for patients admitted to the hospital.

The group found that Salem Health has a robust policy that details delirium prevention strategies, but providers and frontline staff were generally not aware of this resource. So, a delirium prevention order panel was created. This panel allowed providers to easily order nursing interventions for delirium prevention that are directly from the SH policy. The order panel was found to be helpful by those who used it but was difficult to incorporate into provider workflow since it was not part of standard admission order sets.

Thus, starting Tuesday, July 14, the delirium prevention order panel will be incorporated into the following order sets to standardize delirium prevention practices and make evidence-based interventions easier to incorporate into routine care:

• Adult Admission
• Adult Observation
• Geriatric Admission Order Sets

For patients 65 and older, delirium prevention nursing intervention orders will be automatically selected within the admission order set (Figure 1). Providers may also choose additional interventions, such as sleep hygiene measures or appropriate sleep medications, based on individual patient needs.

Figure 1. Delirium prevention panel within select order sets for patients 65 years or older.

For patients younger than 65, the delirium prevention panel will be available within the admission order set but will not be preselected (Figure 2). Providers may select delirium prevention nursing interventions, sleep hygiene or sleep medications for patients at risk of delirium.

Figure 2. Delirium prevention panel within select order sets for patients younger than 65 years.

Email Jade Bryant, PharmD, Pharmacy Clinical Coordinator.