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CSI HWE

Beyond the Brain: Be Great, Communicate!

Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane, WA

CSI Summary

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Summary

CSI Presentation

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Presentation

CSI Toolkit

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Toolkit

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Project Topic:

Peer to Peer Report

Hospital, City and State:

Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane, WA

Unit:

Adult-Geriatric Psychiatric Unit (AGPU)

CSI Participants:

  • Tonya Jones-Miller, ADN, RN
  • Samantha Purcell, MHC
  • Kelly Watt, NAC

Project Goals/Objectives:

  1. Increase Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool (HWEAT) scores in Skilled Communication 10% from 2.72 to 2.99
  2. Increase HWEAT scores in True Collaboration 10% from 2.4 to 2.64
  3. Implement communication hand-off tool and have 100% compliance of use
  4. Decrease end-of-shift overtime 10%

Project Outcomes:

  1. HWEAT Skilled Communication score increased to 3.27
  2. HWEAT True Collaboration score increased to 2.98
  3. Compliance of communication hand-off tool is 35% (noted on survey)
  4. End of shift overtime decreased 10% (self-reported/tracked by nurses; unable to find unit metrics
  5. Better Communication: Gaps in verbal reports and documentation were clarified more quickly
  6. Team Collaboration: Consistent handoffs strengthened teamwork and patient care across disciplines
  7. Staff Buy-In: Nurses found the tool practical leading to voluntary adoption.

Project Overview:

The Beyond the Brain: Be Great Communicate project, implemented at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Adult-Geriatric Psychiatric Unit (AGPU) in Spokane, WA, aimed to improve peer- to-peer communication and collaboration. Through a trauma-informed, standardized reporting tool, the project aligned verbal handoffs with documentation in electronic health record, fostering better teamwork and care continuity. Rooted in AACN’s Healthy Work Environment standards, this initiative emphasized Skilled Communication and True Collaboration to enhance workplace culture and patient outcomes.

Our report tool has areas that correlate with PSYCH – Patient information, Status and Safety, Yesterday and today, Care plan, and Handoff. We surveyed staff to create our multi-disciplinary communication report tool, had 6 launch parties over 2 weekends and shared the tool and our logo stickers and badge pulls. CSIs and champions wore t-shirts with our logo to encourage participation/use of the tool. We received feedback and revised our tool along the way, and surveyed RNs at month 10. Our response rate was low, but we received important feedback to refine our tool. We were unable to obtain overtime data from our leadership, but self-report/tracking by staff noted a 10% decrease in incremental overtime. Of note, although we are a work in progress in terms of refining/increasing compliance utilizing our standardized report tool and correlating incremental overtime as a fiscal impact with our leadership (hoping to obtain this data), all of our HWEAT scores increased.

Permission to Reuse Materials
The materials associated with this AACN Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy project are the property of the participating hospital noted above, not AACN. Requests to use content contained in the CSI team’s summary, presentation or toolkit should be directed to the hospital. We suggest reaching out to the hospital’s Communications, Marketing or Nursing Education department for assistance.

Disclaimer
The AACN CSI Academy program supports change projects based on quality improvement methods. Although CSI teams seek to ensure linkage between their project and clinical/fiscal outcomes, data cannot be solely attributed to the project and are estimations of impact.