Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Reducing Falls And Enhancing Patient Safety: The Role Of Purposeful Hourly Rounding In Rehab Units, Jeffrey Hughes

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: This Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project aims to evaluate the impact of purposeful hourly rounding (PHR) on fall rates and patient outcomes over eight weeks. Fall rates for the rehabilitation unit were examined at the facility, showing 5.19 falls per 1,000 patient days, while the national average is around 3.0 falls per 1,000 patient days. Falls in the hospital are often preventable events. Ensuring the staff in the rehab unit were adequately trained on the use of purposeful hourly rounding (PHR) offers an approach that may reduce the number of these largely preventable events.

Purpose: Purposeful …

Methods Of Educating Nursing Students On Proper Handwashing To Enhance Infection Control During The Covid Pandemic, Yulanda King

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Medical professionals have commonly been urged to use soap and water to sanitize their hands to prevent contamination and disease transmission. However, thorough handwashing requires a couple of minutes to clean hands thoroughly. Considering that health professionals must sanitize their hands' multiply times during a day, handwashing consumes a significant amount of time away from bedside care. Time spent away from patients may also result in a substantial decrease in the quality of healthcare services provided by the medical institution.

Purpose: This project evaluates the current policy and procedure for appropriate use of handwashing versus hand sanitizer in the …

Nurse Champions For Medication Reconciliation: Making A Difference, Stacey Waters

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Medication reconciliation creates a significant safety risk when patients transition from one care environment to another. This is especially true for older adults who may have multiple medications, poor health literacy, or multiple providers. During care transitions, collecting accurate information about previous medication regimens can be a challenge. If providers are unskilled at eliciting the needed information, discrepancies can result, leading to medication errors, poorer outcomes, or patient harm. These discrepancies, if unresolved, can follow the patient throughout hospitalization and back into the outpatient setting, leaving patients unable to manage their care at home safely.

Purpose: The objective …

Can We Talk? Bridging The Communication Gap Between Nurses And Providers, Jolie Wildinger

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Effective communication is the key to successful relationships and improving patient care. Effective and efficient communication is also essential in producing a healthy self-confidence and knowledge base, which is needed by nurses and physicians who are providing daily care to patients.

Purpose: The purpose of this performance improvement project is to increase the communication competence and self-awareness of staff nurses during intraprofessional interactions with the healthcare providers.

Methods: A quasi-experimental quality improvement process that included a pre and post-survey alongside an educational program to arm nurses with information and communication techniques needed to help build relationships to foster effective …

Optimizing Intraprofessional Communication At Patient Handover, Allison Crabtree

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

This performance improvement project aimed to increase the communication competency of nurses during intraprofessional interactions at patient handover. An educational program focused on optimizing communication among nurses was implemented in a community-based, not-for-profit, rural hospital. The course was designed to incorporate a variety of instructional strategies to meet learner needs. Consistency and standardization of the patient handover process was a central theme. Topics of the course focused on the use of a standardized communication tool, the relationship of communication on patient safety, the importance of clear and effective communication, the role of the nurse as gatekeeper and facilitator of patient-specific …