Authors: (including presenting author): :
Lee SY(1), Tam HY(1), Hau CY(1), Tsang HC(1), To YL(1)
Affiliation: :
(1)Physiotherapy Department, North District Hospital
Keyword 1: :
quality and safety
Keyword 2: :
quality and safety month
Keyword 3: :
Phyisotherapy
Introduction: :
In the post–COVID-19 era, demand for physiotherapy services has increased substantially, leading to higher patient volumes and a corresponding rise in the risk of clinical incidents and injury-on-duty (IOD). Maintaining high standards of quality and safety is therefore increasingly critical. A themed Quality and Safety (Q&S) Month was organized in the Physiotherapy Department of North District Hospital to enhance staff awareness, knowledge, and preparedness in safe clinical practice.
Objectives: :
1. To promote quality and safety awareness among clinical staff in Physiotherapy Department;
2. To improve knowledge and confidence in safe clinical practice, particularly among newly recruited professional staff;
3. To identify, control, and minimize environmental risks in clinical areas through structured safety walk-rounds.
Methodology: :
Q&S Month was conducted as a four-week department-wide initiative incorporating educational activities and safety walk-rounds:
Week 1: Focused on sharing IOD and clinical incident data from the past five years, together with education on risk mitigation strategies.
Week 2: Featured the presentation of a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) project on treatment-related injury, conducted by a group of newly recruited physiotherapists.
Week 3: Involved safety walk-rounds in physiotherapy treatment areas and the newly established Family Medicine Integrated Centre.
Week 4: Programme summary and evaluation. Evaluation included pre- and post-event quizzes assessing knowledge of applying heat therapy, cryotherapy, and electrotherapy. Staff feedback was collected and follow-up review of departmental incident rates were performed.
Result & Outcome: :
Pre-training quiz results demonstrated correct response rates of 35%, 36.5%, and 61% for topics on applying heat therapy, cryotherapy, and electrotherapy respectively. In post-event quiz, correct response rates increased to 77%, 74%, and 70%.
Safety walk-rounds identified potential environmental risks in both treatment areas, and corresponding reports were generated. Recommended modification works were completed within three months.
Compared with the previous year, the departmental incident rate decreased by 33%.
Staff evaluation using a five-point Likert scale demonstrated positive feedback, with mean scores of 4.56 for relevance to clinical practice, 4.28 for confidence in clinical application, and 4.33 for overall satisfaction. Conclusion:
The Q&S Month initiative effectively improved staff knowledge and confidence in safe clinical practice, which resulted in a reduction of incident rates. Positive staff feedback was received. Theme-based quality and safety programmes may serve as a practical strategy to strengthen safety culture in high-volume physiotherapy settings.
