Nurse-led speech therapist referral initiative for older adult patients at risk of dysphagia: a best practice implementation project.

Introduction And Objectives: Dysphagia is common among older patients, affecting their nutritional status, hospital readmission, length of hospital stay, and hospitalization costs. Nurses can play a key role in early identification of dysphagia through systematic screening. This project sought to (i) achieve 80% compliance among nurses in using the 4-point questionnaire test (4QT) swallow screening test on patients and (ii) ensure all patients screening positive for dysphagia were referred to a speech therapist within 1 day.