“How can we fix our noise problem?”
It’s a question most healthcare leaders have asked over the years. We know that hospitals are noisy places. We know that patients and their families want a quieter and restful environment. Yet, chances are that you feel lost trying to figure out how to improve the aural environment. The good news is that there are strategies and tools that can help. Based on proven practices, TruthPoint has developed tools and resources that have helped many of our partner hospitals create a quieter and more restful environment for patients.
We have worked together with healthcare leaders and frontline staff to listen to the voice of the patient and use that feedback to craft and implement strategies that have led to quieter environments, improved patient satisfaction scores, and most importantly enhanced patient experience. We have collected these strategies and developed several tools that, along with our performance improvement coaching, support our partners in reducing noise. Those tools include our Patient Experience Improvement Guide to Noise Reduction as well as our Patient Experience Practice Guide to Communicating About Quiet.
One of our partners, Palo Alto VA Health Care System, implemented a unique strategy to reduce noise in one of their inpatient units. The performance improvement team elected a strategy that was both proactive and patient centered that began with conducting a rest assessment on each patient at admission to assist them in determining their needs related to rest and quiet. They also made headphones available and encouraged all patients to use these when listening to their television. Next they developed a rest kit available to every patient including signage in every patient room to communicate to patients the resources available to help patients reduce noise (see picture to the right). Finally, they actively monitored the environment and their activities through real-time voice-of-the patient feedback.
These initiatives resulted in improvements in their post discharge survey “Quiet at Night” question of more than 5% over three quarters. Please contact us to discuss ways that TruthPoint can assist you on a quiet journey.