Improving the patient experience through nurse leader rounds

Abstract

While providing exceptional care experiences to patients is a priority for many organizations, creating and sustaining measureable success in this area remains a challenge for many. This article examines the impact of implementing nurse leader rounds on patient perception of care in the hospitals and emergency departments of a large healthcare system. Nurse leader rounds were implemented as a system-wide improvement practice at Providence Health & Services in 2012. Analysis of Press Ganey and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey results indicates that implementation of nurse leader rounds is associated with statistically significant improvement in patient perception of care, as well as greater rates of improvement than the Press Ganey national database. Results support the hypothesis that the effective implementation of nurse leader rounds can improve patient perception of care within a healthcare system’s hospitals and emergency departments.