KIDS CARE: A Model to Improve Patient and Family Safety and Satisfaction

Purpose:
As a Family Centered Care institution, our nursing department focuses on core values of safety and patient/family satisfaction and tracks data to measure our progress. In 2011, opportunities for improvement were identified; consequently, we turned to an existing model for inspiration.

Significance:
The original KIDS CARE model was designed to teach and reinforce respectful behaviors for nurses initiating therapeutic relationships with patients/families. This model was successful, but needed updating based on our current safety and patient/family satisfaction challenges.

Strategy and Implementation:
The Patient Satisfaction task force partnered with our Shared Governance (SG) and Family Advisory Councils to invigorate and revise the model to help improve patient outcomes, safety, and quality care perceptions. The revised KIDS CARE model now stands for: Knock, Introduce yourself, Discuss plan of care, Scrub hands, Check ID band, Assess Pain, Return in a timely manner, and Explain what you are doing. Education involved implementing multimodal techniques such as: email blasts, presentations, screen savers, and an internal webpage. SG members also engaged in peer to peer mentorship. To advertise KIDS CARE, laminated flyers were placed at every bedside, posters were displayed in high traffic areas, and SG created themed t-shirts for staff to wear at work. A staff developed music video also plays on the internal TV station that reinforces the tenets of KIDS CARE. Reinforcing these concepts enhances safety, communication, and encourages expectations of quality care.

Evaluation:
This deliberate communication and partnership improves relationships between staff and patients/families. Since implementation, our overall patient satisfaction scores have been above the industry mean. Random audits of nursing care have shown improvements in practice of the KIDS CARE tenets.

Implications for Practice:
Nursing's multidisciplinary approach engages staff in the renewed commitment to patient/family satisfaction. Patient/families are encouraged to remind staff when the KIDS CARE model is not followed. We continue to examine our progress and develop systems and structures to keep KIDS CARE relevant.