Date of Conferral

8-17-2026

Date of Award

August 2026

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Mary Rodgers

Abstract

In this staff education project, I addressed the concerning rate of missed patient visits in home healthcare settings. At the practicum site, there has been no education program addressing scheduling and communication best practices for staff. The practice-focused question guiding this project was: Among nursing staff in a home health agency, does implementation of a staff education program on a standardized scheduling and reminder protocol, improve staff knowledge of missed visit reduction practices? The purpose of the project was to evaluate the effectiveness of the staff training on staff knowledge of scheduling, communication, and reminder protocols for the reduction of missed visits. Through a, review of EHR records, I identified 12 missed visits in the month prior to the intervention, attributable to caregiver-related factors such as staff call-offs and lack of backup coverage, patient-related barriers included refusal of care and prior hospitalization, and organizational failures such as scheduling errors. A PowerPoint training intervention was delivered to 17 participants. Staff knowledge was evaluated using a 10-item pre/post knowledge questionnaire. Findings indicated intervention produced a significant improvement in mean staff knowledge scores from 5.5 ± 1.3 pre-training to 9.0 ± 0.8 post-training (p < 0.001). The findings show that nurse-led education as a feasible and low-cost strategy for reducing missed visit across home health settings. Limitations include the small single-site sample, and lack of follow-up. Implications of the findings suggest that similar education initiatives in home health agencies can help address the issues of missed visits that disproportionately affect vulnerable patient populations.

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