Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Cynthia Fletcher

Abstract

Family members experience anxiety not knowing how their loved one is progressing during the surgical process. Communication between perioperative staff and the family can be challenging due to the operating room being in a restricted location. Communication between perioperative staff and the patient family, as reflected in scores on the Press Ganey evaluation report, was below the benchmark for a hospital located in the Western United States. This report measures how satisfied patients were with the information provided to their family during surgery. To address this gap in practice, the hospital implemented a text messaging quality improvement project from August through November of 2019 to inform the family of the status of the patient during surgery. The purpose of this doctoral project was to evaluate the effectiveness of the quality improvement project text messaging initiative in increasing patient satisfaction with the communication between perioperative staff and patients’ family members. Kolcaba’s comfort theory provided an understanding of the nurses’ role in facilitating comfort with the family texting service. The mean Press Ganey scores for patient satisfaction with the information provided to their family 3 months before and 3 months after implementation of family texting in each surgical department were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The patient satisfaction score in all three surgical units increased after implementing the family texting. Therefore, it is recommended that the hospital continue to offer the family texting service for families in these areas. Improving communication in the perioperative care setting has the potential for positive social change by decreasing anxiety and assuring the family that their loved one is progressing through surgery.

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