As part of healthcare reform through the Affordable Care Act of 2010,
hospitals across the United States are being held accountable for
providing a positive patient experience and will lose up to 2% of
their reimbursement by 2017 if they fail to reach targeted scores.
The purpose of this quality improvement project was to review the
process used by a Georgia hospital to educate newly-hired nurses
about customer service expectations and to provide recommendations
for process improvement. Theoretical foundations supporting
customer service included the caring philosophy of Mayeroff; the
caring theories of Watson, Leininger, Boykin, and Nyberg; and
Roy's adaptation theory.
Using the plan-do-study-act model, the project began with a literature
review to discover evidence-based customer service strategies.
A qualitative evaluation was then conducted of the organizational
documents (job description, annual review form, orientation
checklists, clinical orientation record, the Standards of Behavior Form)
and the educational slide presentations to determine how
customer service was presented to new employees.
The customer service strategies introduced during orientation
and reinforced by the organization in employee evaluations were
compared with evidence-based strategies. Improvement
recommendations were developed and presented to the
13 nursing leaders of the organization. Materials developed
to improve customer service included a poster for display, a tool
for examining customer service strategies in hourly rounding,
and a performance competency tool to assess nurses'
customer service delivery. The project promotes social change
by enhancing nurse-patient interactions, improving
patients' perceptions of care, and increasing trust between the
patients and the healthcare team to improve patient outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:waldenu.edu/oai:scholarworks.waldenu.edu:dissertations-3265 |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| Creators | McAfee, Patricia |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks |
| Source Sets | Walden University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies |
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