Patient Experience
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For more information contact us at: MGHPatientExperience@mgh.harvard.edu
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Best Practices
Hourly & Leader Rounding
Hourly safety rounds are conducted on patient care units by nurses on an hourly basis to address patient safety and needs. By conducting hourly rounding, patient needs can be met proactively, resulting in improved quality outcomes and patient and nurse satisfaction.
Mass General utilizes a model for conducting hourly rounding consisting of “4 P’s of Safety”:
- Presence
- Pain
- Position
- Personal hygiene
Leader rounding is a way for nurse leaders to ensure that hourly rounding is being practiced on their units. It also gives them the opportunity to address patients’ concerns and provide real-time feedback to the nursing team, including what’s working well and what can be improved.
Patient Room White Boards
Patient room, or in-room, white boards are a communication tool found in each inpatient room. The white boards identify several members of the patient’s care team, include a goal for the day, anticipated discharge date and provide space for the patient and their family to ask questions.
Example of a patient room white board
Communication Boards
Communication boards are a tool for each nursing unit to educate staff about key quality, safety, and service data. Information posted can include:
- Focus indicators which we are concentrating on for improvement
- Progress made towards our goals on focus indicators/areas
- Verbatim comments from patients
- Resources on best practices
Quiet on Units
A quiet environment offers a healing environment for our patients. Noise is such a stressor for patients that it is proven to be detrimental to their healing process. For many patients, sleep is an important part of their recovery - we need to do everything we can to ensure our patients get as much rest as possible.
icare Model
icare provides a set of simple reminders of how we all, regardless of our role, shape the experiences of our patients, their families and our colleagues. Whether providing care directly or indirectly, or when simply walking through the Mass General hallways, we all foster a welcoming environment and have an opportunity to make a lasting impression on our patients, families, visitors and colleagues every day.
icare stands for:
- Communicate
- Advocate
- Respect
- Empathize