Health care is the maintenance as well as the improvement of people’s health through diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of various diseases and injuries. These functions are availed to the public through different types of healthcare organizations. There are two primary classifications of healthcare organizations. These include profit and non-profit healthcare institutions. This paper is a research proposal on why nurses should adopt a patient-focused staff approach in the healthcare setting, in an effort to understand what drives healthcare and why.

Goals of the Research Proposal

This research aims to propose the need for a research study on the effects of influencing the patient and care team experience through the concepts of mindfulness and perception. Perception and mindfulness can aid in changing the HCAHPS scores, patients and care team experiences as well as the role of healthcare as a business in the real world. Through perceptions and mindfulness, patients attain a high level of expectations, in regard to the quality of health care services they should attain. This means that patients become more observant and demanding on the standards of health care services they attain from the health care team.

In addition, the concepts also shape the care team experiences, in offering medical services to patients. This is because the team can learn emerging heath care needs from patients and then structure their health care services in accordance with the patients’ expectations. In addition, perception and mindfulness influence the role of healthcare in the real world. This is because it ensures that the health care institutions are not only focused on profit-making, but also on the provision of high quality services to the public. The in-service of the research is to educate the staff and hopefully increase their mindfulness about the issue.

Research Methodology

The research methodology that will be used in this research is an HCAHPS survey. The survey will include a series of nine multiple choice questions that will seek to determine how the research participants feel about the patient centered care in today’s healthcare world. The participants of the study will be nurses, patient care assistants and unit secretaries on a medical unit. The research study will be performed on a medical unit, and the principal focus will be on the role of CNL.  After the first survey, a second survey will be issued 4 to 6 weeks to the same participants of the first survey. The purpose of the second survey will be focused on ascertaining whether the staff’s perception has changed in regard to their understanding and mindfulness that healthcare is a business and the reasons why HCAHPS is what drives healthcare today.

The HCAHPS is a standardized, national, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives on the nature of care offered to them in hospitals. The change in HCAHPS can be experienced because of three fundamental reasons. First, the HCAHPS survey develops data on patients’ perspectives of the nature of health care services availed to them. Consequently, this provides an objective as well as a meaningful comparison of different hospitals and how they interact with the patients.  

To avoid a low ranking on the HCAHPS scores, healthcare institutions are forced to raise their patients’ health relation standards. Secondly, the HCAHPS surveys act as an incentive for medical facilities to improve their quality of patients’ care services. Third, public reporting through the HCAHPS surveys enhances accountability in the health care facilities. Consequently, this enhances transparency in the quality of hospital care offered, in return for the attained public investment. Perception and mindfulness, in the health care perspective, can also influence the patients and care team experiences.

In addition, the second HCAHPS survey will be focused on determining whether the HCAHPS scores have improved among the research study participants. In this section, a “did you know” poster including random facts about Medicare will be issued to the staff members, who will also be the participants of the research study. In addition, the poster will also contain information about the types of healthcare institutions and how they obtain their funding. Also, random emails will be sent to the staff members of the unit with random facts and reminders.  

The Lewin’s Change Theory will be used in the research study to explain the aspects of change process explained in the human processes as expected to be observed through the changes in the HCAHPS score. The starting of the proposed researched study will be August 1, 2016. The second HCAHPS survey will be issued to the staff on September 15, 2016. The project will then be completed on September 30, 2016, after the research findings have been analyzed and reported. The estimated cost of conducting the proposed research study will be two thousand U.S. dollars.

The committee members who will be presiding on the research by name and role in committee will include: Dr. Patricia Davis, DNP, RN-BC, MS, NEA-BC, CNL – Major Professor (MP), Shawna Wallace, BSN, RN, CMSRN – Topic Expert (TE) and Deb Trometer, BS, MHA – Organization/Unit Expert (OE). Others will be Dana Scott, MSN, RN – Inter-professional Expert (IE) and myself, Keerat Singh, BSN, RN – MSN-CNL Student. All the committee members will have an active role in ensuring that the research project runs as scheduled.

Literature Review

The aspect of mindfulness is essential when handling patients in all health care facilities. This is because it enhances patients’ satisfaction with all the medical services availed to them. In the recent times, the medical fraternity has recognized the need to enhance the concept of mindfulness when dealing with patients. Numerous healthcare institutions today are also evaluated on the level in which they practice the aspect of mindfulness when handling patients.  

The aspect of mindfulness when handling patients can be observed in an article authored by Boev (2012). The publication illustrated that there is a close relationship between the level of patient’s satisfaction in critical care and the nurses’ perception or mindfulness of their working environment. In a different publication authored by Bush (2011), numerous medical institutions today are a two-prolonged approach in order to ensure that their HCAHPS scores are helpful rather than being hurtful to the Medicare payments.

In a different publication authored by Donahue et al. (2008), there is a close connection that can be observed between the nurses’ perceptions of empowerment within the health care environment with the level of patients’ satisfaction. In addition, according to Fabry (2015), both perceptions and perspectives when handling patients must be implemented by the nursing staff in order to attain patients’ satisfaction. This phenomenon can also be supported by Frampton and Charmel (2009) publication. It supported the need for the nurses to put patients’ needs first in a patient-centered care as a way of maximizing patients level of satisfaction.  

References

Boev, C. (2012). The relationship between nurses’ perception of work environment and patient satisfaction in adult critical care. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 44(4), 368-375. doi:10.1111/j.1547-5069.2012. 01466.x

Bush, H. (2011, December). Doubling down on the patient experience: many hospitals are taking a two-pronged approach to make sure HCAHPS scores help, rather than hurt, Medicare payments. H&HN Hospitals & Health Networks, 85(12), 22+. Retrieved from: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA276516790&v=2.1&u=txshracd2618&it=r&p=HRCA&sw=w

Donahue, M. O., Piazza, I. M., Griffin, M. Q., Dykes, P. C., & Fitzpatrick, J. J. (2008). The relationship between nurses’ perceptions of empowerment and patient satisfaction.;Applied Nursing Research,;21(1), 2-7. Doi: 10.1016/j.apnr.2007.11.001

Fabry, D. (2015). Hourly Rounding: Perspectives and Perceptions of the Frontline Nursing Staff. Journal of Nursing Management, 23(2), 200-210. Doi:10.1111/jonm.12114

Frampton, S. B., ; Charmel, P. A. (2009).;Putting patients first: Best practices in patient-centered care;(2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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