Persevering with Nursing Communication Improvements Despite COVID-19 Challenges

Communication among the nurse, patient, and family members is a valuable component of the patient experience. This quality improvement project focuses on increasing HCAHPS nurse communication scores through various strategies. [...]
Literature Summary * Patient satisfaction is an important parameter to measure patients' perception of hospital experience (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, n.d.). * Results of a study suggested nurses sitting at the patient's bedside increased patient satisfaction. Staff members also had a greater sense of pride and ownership in their work (George et al., 2018). * Committing to sit illustrates to patients and their families the nurse is available and values their concerns (Groves et al., 2021). * When a provider sits at the patient's bedside, the patient perceives the interaction as longer and more meaningful (Dempsey, 2017). CQI Model Plan-Do-Study-Act (The W. Edwards Deming Institute, n.d.) Quality Indicator with Operational Definitions & Data Collection Methods Commit to Sit involves nurses sitting at eye level when communicating with patients. Nurse communication scores on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) were collected monthly to determine the effectiveness of the initiative. Clinical Setting/Patient Population/Average Daily Census 11 medical-surgical units each with 32 beds within a 600-bed safety net hospital Program Objective Increase nursing communication HCAHPS score by 1.5% from the baseline 74.4% and sustain or exceed for 1 year. Keywords patient experience, nurse communication, HCAHPS, communication strategies, COVID-19