“Talk to Me for Ten”

Abstract

Patient satisfaction is an effective indicator of measuring quality health care provided in hospitals. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), developed The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) which is the first national initiative that has provided a “standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perspectives on hospital care” (CMS, 2017). This tool measures randomized patient perspectives using a 32 question survey, with one of the focuses being “communication with nurses”. Patient satisfaction is directly related to reimbursement for the hospital. Medicare now reimburses “centered on quality, not simply quantity, of services provided”. A specific focus was taken on a specialized IMU/Medical-Surgical unit in Temple University Hospital to increase the patient satisfaction score for “Communication with Nurses”. For the fiscal year of 2017, nursing communication score for the pilot unit, was 76.3 with a target of 78. After the implementation of the “Talk to Me for 10” on the IMU/Medical-Surgical unit, during the first 3 quarters of the 2018 fiscal year the communication with nurses score jumped to 81.5%. Through this research conducted on the unit, we examined the benefits of direct RN communication and an increase in patient satisfaction.