Who?
A new and exciting non-surgical solution to improve the recovery from complex finger fractures has been developed by Sarah Bradley, an Advanced Occupational Therapy Practitioner in Hand Therapy at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The Poole Finger Traction Splint avoids costly surgical intervention, freeing up valuable theatre time and resources.
Why?
Now that the splint is in fully operational within Poole Hospital and saving the Trust thousands of pounds, Sarah was keen to roll out this piece of innovation nationally. So, from a recommendation by Derek Kelly from NHS Innovations South West who are working closely with the Trust, Sarah contacted Health and Care Videos to find out how videos could be used to not only train others, educate patients and medics, but to show how effective its use could be in helping to reduce costs.
What?
What resulted was as series of videos that:
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- Showed patients how to undertake their exercises during their rehabilitation program and standardises this part of the process.
- Discussed the economic benefits to the Trust and to patients
- Advises on the adoption and ownership of the treatment as moving away from the surgeon to the hand therapist
- demonstrates the support of a hand surgeon advocating the treatment and his experience of its use within Poole Hospital NHS Trust
- Demonstrates technical components of the splint fabrication to support therapists i.e. how to set the traction tension
Sarah now uses the videos as part of her two day training programme. The patient information is also going to be used in clinical practice as a visual resource for patients on how to undertake their exercises in addition to the information conventionally provided in paper form.
Feedback
‘The use of the videos has given us a medium that helps to engage potential adopters of the Poole Finger Traction splint as well as provide a clear and concise overview of the treatment. It helps us to ensure patients know how to use it correctly and what the benefits could be if adopted. Working with Health and Care Videos was extremely easy as they helped write the scripts, sourced actors and supported us in getting the videos loaded and ready to view. Feedback from the delegates of the training program has been that the use of video was innovative in this context, the information contained within the videos was easy to digest and was then accessible after the event to watch again. It’s been especially valuable as a tool to educate surgeons they work with to gain their support in implementation’.
Sarah Bradley, Advanced Occupational Therapy Practitioner in Hand Therapy, Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
To view the demonstration video click here.
