Daily bedside whiteboard updating by nurses to increase patient communication and improve patient surveys through Hcalps scores after discharge.
Patient satisfaction largely depends on the quality of communication with the nursing staff. Patient satisfaction largely depends on the quality of communication with the nursing staff. There are several tools and techniques available to help improve patient-nursing connection channels. This project focuses on the introduction of bedside whiteboards to track changes or comments related to a particular patient. This is supposed to endure patient engagement in communication and, as a result, an improved health care provision.
Among other things, besides the end-user of the information written on the board, their family can benefit from receiving important notes from the care team and a comprehensive message regarding the treatment plan. A quality study by Nowacki et al. (2018) highlights an increase in family and patient awareness about the care and safety plans as well as doctor’s and nurse’s names. This positively influenced harm prevention and care planning at the hospital. Such improvements facilitate the patient’s satisfaction with health care. Nowacki et al. (2018) also underline the importance of a proper design of whiteboards and leaving extra space for comments. The staff should be able to use it efficiently, without spending too much time taking notes. Moreover, it is crucial to educate nurses about the purpose of the initiative and how it should be implemented. This is essential in enduring the use of plain language for whiteboard messages and timely and organized project implementation.
Judging by the number of articles on the impact of such projects on improving the quality of treatment planning and communication with patients, it can be concluded that such initiatives are effective. Moreover, the project is budgetary and can be carried out efficiently with the proper level of planning and management. For example, it will be essential to list the activities in stages – from whiteboard design development to nursing training. For this purpose, the Gantt chart and WBS will be relied on.
Reference
Nowacki, K., Gonzalez, T., Mehnert, J., Jacquemard, A., & Tyler, A. (2018). Using patient whiteboards to engage families in harm prevention and care planning: A quality improvement study. Hospital Pediatrics, 8(6), 345–352. Web.