Student: ____________________ Date: _3/25/12_____
Topic: Hourly Nursing Rounds to Improve HCAHPS Scores

* Clearly state the proposed project (what do you plan to do):

Implement hourly nursing rounds on the Progressive Care Unit at SPGH to improve patient satisfaction. Hourly nursing rounds have been shown in evidenced based practices to not only improve patient satisfaction but also help to reduce patient falls and reduce the occurrence of decubitus ulcers. Not only does hourly nursing rounds help the before mentioned items it also serves to reduce the call light usage by patients thereby increasing productivity for nurses (Culley, 2008). The proposed project includes education of the nursing staff on PCU to the initiation of hourly nursing rounds, including evidenced based research showing how regular rounds helps to improve patient satisfaction and safety.

Described potential or real barriers and solutions (financial, political, social, etc) and methods that will or could be used to address these barriers:

Some potential barriers could be reluctance by the nursing staff to participate in the hourly nursing rounds due to the feeling that they do not have enough time to complete these hourly rounds. By providing the unit with appropriate staff and helping to reduce or eliminate their fears by providing them with the research gathered can hopefully achieve this goal. Also by showing them that call light frequency will be lower when hourly rounds are completed they may be less reluctant to participate. Another barrier could be false participation by the nursing staff in which they just initial the log and they really didn’t round on their patient every hour. A way to eliminate this barrier is to have the nursing manager round on the patients and ask them if their nurse is checking on them every hour.

* Promotional materials (how