Article Text
Abstract
BMJ Best Practice Comorbidities has been created by the BMJ Knowledge Centre. This work was carried out by BMJ staff and was done in collaboration with healthcare professionals in training in the UK. One in three adults admitted to hospital in the UK have five or more conditions. People with comorbidities have poorer functional status, quality of life, and health outcomes, and are higher users of ambulatory and inpatient care than those without comorbidities. This poses a problem for patients, healthcare professionals, health leaders, and health systems. In light of this, BMJ Best Practice launched a new tool – BMJ Best Practice Comorbidities. This tool enables healthcare professionals to access detailed guidance on how to manage patients with multiple conditions and thus provide holistic care. In a pilot evaluation, we made this tool available to a group of healthcare professionals in training. We then asked them to fill in a simple questionnaire outlining what difference, if any, the tool made to their practice. We measured the effect of any improvement as a result of using the tool by means of a short questionnaire. We asked the healthcare professionals to describe the circumstances in which they had used the tool, whether the tool made any difference to their practice, and what impact this had on patient care. The evaluation showed that BMJ Best Practice Comorbidities is effective at helping healthcare professionals to improve the care that they provide to patients with multiple conditions (the resource helped users to improve practice in 70% of cases). When it doesn’t change practice, it can still have an effect by reassuring users that their practice is correct (this occurred in 15% of cases). This evaluation showed impact in improving the practice of healthcare professionals in delivering high-quality and safe care for patients with comorbidities.