Document Type
Doctoral Project
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Today’s healthcare environment is becoming increasingly competitive for patient volume and revenue dollars. The introduction of Value Based Purchasing by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) links patient satisfaction and healthcare quality to government reimbursement. Patient satisfaction has been linked to increased market share, thereby, positively impacting revenue for healthcare organization and increasing the competitiveness between healthcare organizations. In addition, patient satisfaction has been linked to increased compliance with prescribed healthcare regimens leading to improved health outcomes.
Nursing leaders of today’s healthcare systems must develop strategies to increase patient satisfaction and improve the revenue streams for their organizations. The effects of nurse rounding have been documented in the literature as improving the overall quality of care. The question raised in this quality improvement project was “On a medical-surgical inpatient unit, does the implementation of a staff nurse led customer service rounding program, as compared to no staff nurse customer service rounding program, increase the Press-Ganey Patient Satisfaction scores as reported by HCAHPS over a three month period?” In order to answer this question, a staff nurse led, customer service rounding program was implemented that elicited patient feedback to the staff on duty in real time in order to change staff behavior and increase patient satisfaction scores.
Utilization of a process of staff nurse rounding was conducted for patients with in-patient lengths of stay equal to or greater than three days. Specific questions were used to elicit the patient’s perception of care. The summary of rounding findings was shared with on-duty nursing staff to motivate change in behavior and increase patient satisfaction. Rounding and feedback effectiveness were measured via monthly Press-Ganey Patient Satisfaction scores and identification of trends on the Patient Satisfaction Rounding Logs.
The results for the three intervention months revealed an influence on patient satisfaction as the patient satisfaction scores generally improved when compared to a non-intervention month. Several factors were discovered to impact patient satisfaction scores such as number of nurse rounds, number of patients rounded on, completion of post-rounding huddle and number of returned surveys. Additionally, rounding program success was found to be influenced by leadership support and attention and staff workload.
Repository Citation
Tussing, T. E. (2015). Nurse Rounding: An Evidenced Based Practice Report. . Wright State University, Dayton, OH.
