The impact of consultant-delivered multidisciplinary inpatient medical care on patient outcomes

摘要

Editor - We read with interest the article by Fielding et al which assessed the impact of consultant-led multidisciplinary team (MDT)-delivered care on length of stay (Clin Med August 2013 p344-8). Taken together with the earlier study by Ahmad et al. there appears to be mounting support that increasing consultant-delivered ward rounds is associated with shorter length of stay. However, at our own institution we found that the introduction of two extra consultant 'winter pressure' ward rounds by the respiratory and general internal medicine (GIM) teams was associated with only a very modest saving in average length of stay when compared to the non-respiratory/GIM teams, who continued with two formal ward rounds per week (Table 1). Furthermore, an earlier start time of 8am did not appear to influence the time of TTO ('to take out' prescription) printing or the time of discharge.