Practice Improvement by Implementing the Pediatric Anesthesia Emergence Delirium Scale

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to assess providers’ perceived improvement in knowledge of the pediatric anesthesia emergence delirium (PAED) scale following an educational presentation. Background. Pediatric emergence delirium (PED) is a temporary behavioral disorder identified in children within minutes of awakening from anesthesia. The local children’s hospital (LCH) in northeastern Ohio manages children with PED in their post-anesthesia care unit (PACU). Currently there is no standardized method of assessing PED in the pediatric post-surgical population, nor is there a way to measure the incidence. The PAED scale is a highly sensitive diagnostic tool used in the identification of PED that can be implemented into the PACU charting system. With this new tool, the facility can track the incidence of PED amongst their patient population and develop future QI projects focusing on risk reduction. Methods. Participating providers viewed an educational presentation regarding PED and the PAED scale. To measure improvement in knowledge, a post-pre-survey (PPS) was administered following the presentation. The PPS was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational presentation by assessing participants’ perceptions of change in their knowledge. Results. There was a statistically significant improvement in knowledge by 21.4% following the educational presentation. The survey indicated most participants attributed their improvement in knowledge to the information in the presentation. Conclusions. Following the training of anesthesia providers and PACU nurses using the educational presentation from this project, the PAED scale will be implemented into the PACU charting system.