Authors (including presenting author) :
Kwong Kar Long(1), Chan Wai Ming Jack(2)
Affiliation :
A2 ward, Queen Mary Hospital, HKWC
Introduction :
Effective communication between patients and nursing staff is crucial for delivering high-quality nursing care in healthcare settings. Professional interactions not only enhance patient satisfaction but also foster a positive image of nursing professionals to the public. However, the bustling and fast-paced nature of the healthcare environment often leads nursing staff to underestimate the importance of effective communication. Nursing staff often adopt a one-way, top-down communication method when they need to interact with patients, believing this approach is the quickest and most efficient way to address patients’ concerns. Regrettably, this can leave patients feeling neglected and may result in unwanted verbal and/or physical conflicts. In order to address the aforementioned challenges, this Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) project aims to implement strategies to encourage nursing staff to respond to patients in a professional manner so that patient-nurse partnerships can be fostered, and overall quality of nursing care can be improved.
Objectives :
1. Enhance nursing staff members’ effective communication skills to patients.
2. Promote nursing staff members’ professional image by engaging with patients in a professional and empathetic manner.
Methodology :
1. Development of standardized scripts. It included various scenario-based situations that nursing staff frequently encounter when dealing with patients’ request. These scripts were created by the project leader, and reviewed by Ward Manager (WM), and Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) to ensure content accuracy and relevancy in daily nursing practice.
2. Self-evaluation questionnaire. It was designed to evaluate nursing staff members’ understanding and application of effective communication strategies in various scenario-based situations. The responses would help identify areas for improvement to facilitate better patient-nurse partnerships. The questionnaire was distributed to all nursing staff via Google Forms. A total of 10 scenario-based multiple-choice questions (in Chinese) were given to nursing staff. They were required to read each scenario carefully, and select the most appropriate response.
Result & Outcome :
The self-evaluation questionnaire result was categorized based on specific scenarios with 96-100% respondents selected appropriate answers. The standard scripts demonstrated the adherence to effective communication strategies, professionally and empathetically expressed concern for patient medical condition and willingness to offer help.
The implementation of standardized scripts had positively promoted the professional image of nursing staff and increased staff awareness of the importance of effective communication with patients/visitors by actively listening to patients' concerns and using respectful and empathetic language with patients/visitors. To conclude, this CQI project had successfully enhanced nursing staff members' awareness on communication skills and professional manner, as evidenced by the high percentage of appropriate responses on the self-evaluation questionnaire.
