St. Joseph’s is Transforming Care at the Bedside

Nurses play a central role in ensuring the quality and safety of hospital care, and St. Joseph’s Area Health Services rallies behind its nursing team to take lead in improving patient care.

Selected as one of 24 hospitals in the state by the Minnesota Hospital Association, St. Joseph’s took on the Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB) initiative one year ago.

Since then, 46 ideas were generated by employees and tested as a means to enhance St. Joseph’s patient experience. Thirty-eight of these innovations were adopted, five are still being tested, and three were abandoned.

These creative solutions help to improve efficiencies so that nurses can be more available at the patient’s bedside to provide patient education, keep patients safe from falls, make hourly rounds, and provide support as needed.

“Transforming Care at the Bedside empowers nurses to redesign, rapidly test, and evaluate their work to achieve better results for patients,” says Sonda Tolle, St. Joseph’s Med/Surg Manager.“That leads to higher quality care and job satisfaction for the nursing and front-line teams.”

Some of the new ideas adopted included step savers such as a reorganization of supplies and equipment, chart form revisions, or establishing new protocols for medication delivery to secure patient room nurse servers. Other departments collaboratively stepped forward to make many new solutions possible.

Another innovation relocated the way nurses share shift report information. What was once done in private now takes place at the patient’s bedside. This inclusive upgrade involves patient interaction and gives patients a new opportunity to communicate and advocate their own healthcare preferences.

In April,“Fast Fix Fridays” gave staff the option to submit ideas that are quick to implement.

Some examples of“Fast Fixes” include placing gait belts for patients in a convenient location and improving white board communications in patient rooms.

The Transforming Care at the Bedside initiative has kept the interest of St. Joseph’s nursing team judging by the number of new submissions submitted throughout the past year.“Ideas keep coming forward weekly,” reports Jennifer Schauland, RN and Transforming Care at the Bedside core team member.

As a result, work will continue as nurses cultivate partnerships at the bedside to share information and encourage patients and their families to participate in the care and decision-making that impacts their healing.

“St. Joseph’s participation in this program shows that we are committed to being a leader in improving patient care and increasing efficiency to produce better outcomes,” Tolle adds.

Program successes at St. Joseph’s have already been shared with other hospitals.