Impact

Fifteen globally diverse clinical/research experts reached 100% consensus on the practice guidelines within six months and the tool will help an estimated 2.5 million patients.

Over 2000 nurses were involved in the consensus building process, across 20 countries and in 12 languages, with a combined experience of over 16 million hours of specialized ostomy care to draw on. 1200 nurses answered one or more of the Delphi surveys and over 960 were involved in one or more face2face dialogues.

Post project evaluations of participant satisfaction with the process and the results showed a mean score of 8.8, on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest satisfaction rating. The study was approved by Research Ethics (IRB) and the results are being published in a number of leading industry Journals.

A Focused Conversation with the Coloplast staff and the Advisory Board members was conducted by the facilitator to determine their level of confidence in the processes used to facilitate the global consensus and the efficacy of the process from a scientific/evidence-based perspective. 100% of participants agreed that the process was both highly effective in meeting the objective, that the consensus was reached significantly faster, and the product was significantly better, than if a different process had been used or a facilitator not brought in to design and facilitate the process. One participant said, “I am confident this will make waves around the world”.

Context and challenges

Coloplast develops products and services that make life easier for people with very personal and private medical conditions. Working closely with the people who use our products, we create solutions that are sensitive to their special needs. Our business includes Ostomy Care, Continence Care, Wound & Skin Care and Urology Care. We operate globally, and our organisation is more than 10,000 people strong.

There are approximately 2.5 million ostomy patients living with a stoma worldwide. 91% of people living with a stoma worry about leakage and 76% have experienced leakage over the past six months. This means there are over 2 million people around the world who are living a significantly decreased quality of life because of their stoma.

When surveyed, more than 75% of stoma care nurses reported that they sometimes or often encounter patients who have reduced their hobbies, socialization, leisure and physical activities because of their stoma and almost 40% of their stoma patients refuse to leave their homes because of their worry about leakages.

Evidence shows that with the right treatment and appliance, patients can resume their normal activities with confidence. This project was designed to create a global consensus on medical practice guidelines to significantly increase the number of stoma patients worldwide who increase their quality of life by increasing the confidence in their stoma security.

Project objectives

Develop consensus based specific, tangible and concrete guidelines that—building on evidence-based knowledge and experiences—assists healthcare providers and patients to:

1. Demonstrate the need for the availability (value of variety) of products that can cover all individual peristomal body profiles.
2. Accurately and quickly determine what type of stoma product would work best for them - the product that provides the best fit and the most confidence.
3. Reach acceptance of the importance of systematically assessing the peristomal Body profiles to ensure a good fit between the body and the pouching system to prevent leakage.
4. Speed up the acceptance and implementation process globally with both healthcare providers and customers from 10 years (experience of previous Coloplast projects) to 2 years or less.

Approach

The Modified Delphi Process was used for this project that combined the scientific rigor of the traditional Delphi and the RAND Nominal Group Technique, with virtual and face2face facilitated dialogues using Solution Focused, ToP, Focused Conversation and Interview Matrix methodologies. The project was led by Kimberly Bain, an IAF Certified^TM Professional Facilitator at Baingroup Consulting, from beginning to end, with process facilitation guiding, and being used at every step of the project and for every decision.