774 KEEP SMILING! IMPROVING ORAL HEALTH ON AN ACUTE MEDICINE FOR THE ELDERLY WARD

Abstract

Good oral health in older patients is important for numerous reasons including facilitating fluid and nutritional intake, communication and quality of life. It is an essential component of providing holistic care and should be a daily care requirement during a hospital admission. Poor oral health leads to adverse outcomes including periodontitis, tooth loss, pneumonia and cardiovascular disease. Frail, elderly and those with dementia are at increased risk of poor oral health. Our group decided to undertake quality improvement work to improve our patient's oral health care during their hospital stay. Baseline data was collected in our acute medicine for the elderly ward which looked at a variety of factors which influence good oral health. This included access to drink, nursing assessment of dentition on admission and daily review of mouth care documented by nursing and medical staff. Following this, we implemented an educational session for medical staff to promote good oral care. Results: showed an improvement in ensuring patients had their drink within arm's reach (94% to 100%). Daily medical review of a patient's oral health also increased from 0% to 24%. Conclusion: We have made small steps in improving medical review and documentation of our patient's oral health whilst in hospital. There is still a need for further improvement in assessment and documentation in order to minimise complications associated with poor mouth care. We have undertaken further educational sessions to our nursing colleagues and we plan to introduce a ward 'oral health champion' as part of our ongoing improvement work.