Geisinger Health System has developed a “nursing bundle” to improve and streamline care.
The big nonprofit Pennsylvania/New Jersey system said, in a NEJM Catalyst article:
“Our goal was to develop and adopt a consistent ‘nursing bundle’ across all of our sites. A bundle, as defined by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is a structured way of improving the processes of care and patient outcomes: a small, straightforward set of evidence-based practices — generally three to five — that, when performed collectively, consistently, and reliably, have been proven to improve patient outcomes. This definition allowed us to focus on the most critical elements of the bundle.”
“We created a team comprising chief nursing officers (CNOs) and key nursing leaders across the system. This team identified evidence-based practices that were proven to provide the best experiential and clinical care outcomes. Each CNO was charged with vetting the best practices and eventual nursing bundle plan with managers and frontline registered nurses. This process assured support, buy-in, and input from all levels within the organization.”
Its lessons so far:
- “Executive leadership must make patient experience a strategic priority via goal-setting, day-to-day behaviors, and culture.
- “It is just as important to train the top leadership as to train frontline employees.
- “Monitoring performance is essential. Ongoing results and progress, monthly and quarterly, are shared with our board, our CEO, all levels of leadership, and fellow employees to track performance and celebrate successes.
- “We are improving our performance by adding other tools, such as an inpatient welcome letter that helps set expectations by educating patients on the nursing bundle elements and providing photos and contact information for the nursing leaders in each department.”
To read the whole NEJM piece, please hit this link.
