[Dysphagia] Dysphagia assessments in acute care

[WArchambault at hrsrh.on.ca (Archambault, Wendy)]

Hi,

I am working in an acute care facility in which we have variable wait times
for patients to be seen for a bedside swallowing assessment dependent on
caseload and coverage. When fully staffed we generally see patients within
2-3 days of the referral date if orders have been entered correctly in our
system. When understaffed our wait time can be up to 1 week.

 

Our stroke steering committee has proposed that we develop a "screening"
tool that would allow nursing to determine what diet stroke patients can be
placed on after they have been NPO for 24hrs as per stroke orders, while
they await their swallowing assessment by the SLP. In addition, they have
suggested using the "train the trainer" method for educating all of our
stroke nurses as SLP are limited.

 

I am wondering if anyone has been involved in a similar situation and what
was done. The problem that has been identified by our SLP group is that
nursing is asking for an assessment not a screening. Does anyone know of any
tools and/or programs that are available that may be appropriate for this
"preliminary" mini assessment that is being requested? There has been a lot
of work done locally to try and develop such a tool and previous attempts
have failed at the training level.

 

Thanks!

Wendy

**********************************************************************
The information contained in this email and document(s)attached are for the
exclusive use of the addressee and may contain confidential, privileged and
non-disclosable information. If the recipient of this e-mail is not the
addressee, such recipient is strictly prohibited from reading, photocopying,
distributing or otherwise using this e-mail or its content in any way.