A Syringe in an Emergency Saves Time: An Audit on the Utility of Syringe Provision in Eye Emergency

Background Patient satisfaction is the top priority of health care facilities in addition to the quality of health care delivery services. The convenience of health care receivers, be it temporal or monetary, fall in this domain. Hospitals should be equipped with dealing with all kinds of emergencies no matter how trivial or catastrophic. Aim To improve the provision of emergency care equipment (1 c.c. syringes) in the examination room of our ophthalmology department by 50% in two months' time. Materials and methods This quality improvement project (QIP) was conducted in the ophthalmology department of a teaching hospital in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This QIP was conducted over a period of two months in the form of three cycles. All cooperative patients with embedded and superficial corneal foreign bodies who presented to the eye emergency were included in the project. The provision of 1 c.c. syringes in the emergency eye care trolley of the eye examination room was ensured at all times after the first cycle survey. A record was maintained of the percentage of patients receiving syringes from the department as well as the percentage of patients purchasing them from the pharmacy. The progress was measured every 20 days, following the approval of this QI project. Results A total of 49 patients were included in this QIP. This QIP shows that the provision of syringes was improved to 92.8% and 88.2% in cycles 2 and 3 from the previous statistics of 16.6% in the first cycle. Conclusions It is concluded that this QIP achieved its target. The provision of emergency equipment, such as a 1 cc syringe costing less than 1/20th of a dollar, is a simple act that saves resources and improves patient satisfaction.