This presentation will describe our intervention model in Women’s services which resulted in our dramatic improvement from an overall score of Would Recommend from the 74^th percentile in 2009 to the 92^nd percentile year to date 2011 in HCAHPS as reported by NRC Picker.

Proposed change:

Frustration mounts when nurses provide exceptional care, going above and beyond to meet their patients every need, yet those patients do not perceive the care they received as exceeding their expectations. We understand your frustration, as we too struggled to discover why we were not achieving the scores to reflect the care we believed we were providing.

We discovered the disconnect resided when the cultural expectations of how to be cared for as an expectant mother collide with the culture of caring that exists in hospitals, the patient’s experience and perception of the entire hospital can drastically suffer.  By understanding and aligning, the subconscious drivers of both cultures, we developed and interventional model based on the archetype of Mother’s Guidance that considerably changed our approach to expectant mothers as they enter the unit (welcome), during their stay (care) and their transition and discharge to home (goodbye).

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation:

Staff education was provided to reveal the subconscious beliefs our patients have which affect their expectations of care.

Our approach to how we care for patients was changed to align with these expectations and to activate their emotional triggers to influence their perception of a positive experience.

An intervention and coaching-to-sustainability model was designed to improve patient satisfaction.

Continued patient feedback provided to sustain new care model, improve patient satisfaction scores and to ignite nursing passion for providing excellent care.

Patient satisfaction scores steadily increased, initially in the nursing HCAPS scores, slowly resulting in increased would recommend and overall rating of their stay scores. Not only have we sustained these scores, they have continued to increase throughout 2011.

Staff and management continue to analyze patient comments and scores for continued improvement.

Implications for nursing practice: Changed how we deliver care, adding new processes and modifying others. These changes have led to increased patient satisfaction, as well as increased nurse satisfaction and renew commitment to their profession. 

Keywords: Patient Satisfaction, Nurse Satisfaction, Patient and Family Centered Care, and Subconscious Patient Expectations