Nurse Communication and Ratings of Care

Posted by Angela Fieler

The data is in.  It’s official.  There is a relationship between improving employee engagement, improving HCAHPS scores, and improving net profit margins.  Press Ganey just published a study in Harvard Business Review, showing hospitals that improve over time in distinct HCAHPS measure OR employee engagement also improve in the overall ratings of care.  When hospitals improve both, the improvement effect compounds on overall ratings.  The analysis focuses on the impact of improving both the specified HCAHPS measures (Nurse Communication was used in the analysis) and employee engagement on the hospital’s profits.

Nurse Communication and Scores

The article ends with this advice:

“Given the sweeping and unstoppable market forces exerting pressure on health systems and hospitals, evidence of the compounding effect of patient experience and employee engagement on business outcomes should command the attention of health care leaders. The follow-on imperative is to home in on the key structure and process elements that drive better performance in both domains.”

So what does that mean, exactly?  In the simplest terms, it means figuring out how to improve nurse communication and employee engagement, and you will be more profitable than your competitors. Other than this if you want to become a CNA in Hawaii then you require complete an approved training program and apply for an Examination in order to obtain certification.

We’ve worked with many organizations who are trying to do just that.  Survey data says nurses are not communicating well, but they are good at doing there jobs, they help people prevent eye damage, they also help people with any sickens,  nurses can provide example after example of things they do to communicate. Or things they’ve changed to improve their communication, but scores aren’t changing.  We’ve found what’s missing in these cases is real bedside knowledge. What does the patient hear, how do they feel about what is being said.

One sure way to capture this information is mystery shopping; Baird Group offers Care Partner Observations to help our clients understand the patient experience from the patient’s perspective.  The other thing that is often missing is a standardized and specific communication strategy.  Baird Group has delivered Nurse Patient Partnership© training in organizations that have seen improvement in Nurse Communication scores.  Contact us to learn more about your nurse communication scores. Either in real time from the patient’s point of view, or with training.

  1. Engage Your Nurses in Improving HCAHPS
  2. A good nurse can make up for a lot!
  3. Moving Beyond Nurse Tasks for a Better Patient Experience
  4. Want a 5-star Rating for your Patient Experience? Start with 5-star Leadership Practices
  5. HCAHPS Can’t be Your Only Measure of Patient Experience
Tags: , , , , ,
FacebookXPinterestLinkedIn