3/16/23, 7:33 PM Problem Identification and Policy Development Transcript

TRANSCRIPT

Problem Identification and

Policy Development
Introduction
The following questions will allow you to practice identifying problems within
health care systems and the types of policies and stakeholders who could help
drive improvements

Instructions

For the following questions write your short response in the area provided.

Question 1 of 3

At St. Anthony Medical Center, an urban

hospital that is part of the Vila Health network,
patient satisfaction scores have been declining.
The data has been synthesized and some of
the key findings were shared out to staff. Some
of the highlights included:
75 percent of patients were slightly
unsatisfied with their wait time
10 percent of patients were very unsatisfied
with their communication with floor nurses
45 percent of patients were moderately
unsatisfied with the noise level
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3/16/23, 7:33 PM Problem Identification and Policy Development Transcript

80 percent of patients were satisfied with

the information received at discharge
Of these highlights which one would be the
first you would try to address and why?
This question has not yet been answered.

There is no one right answer to this question. The least likely survey finding to
identify as a problem to address would be the 80 percent satisfaction with
discharge communications. The other three options are problems that are likely
worth addressing. The 75 percent of patients that were slightly unsatisfied
with their wait times represents a large number of patients for St. Anthony
Medical Center. Additionally, they were only slightly unsatisfied. So, it would
likely take less effort to bring some or all in this group into the satisfied
category than the other two unsatisfied findings. This means you could
potentially see a big uptick in satisfaction scores with only incremental
improvements. However, this could leave more serious problems unaddressed.
The 10 percent of patients were very unsatisfied with their communication
with floor nurses represents a small number of patients, but they are a group
that had a significant issue. Addressing this highlight should help raise
satisfaction scores. However, it is likely to be a longer and more difficult effort.

Question 2 of 3

Let us presume you selected the wait time

satisfaction issue from the findings above. If
you were to develop a policy to try and improve
satisfaction, what area(s) or process(es) would
you focus on? Why? Note: You will have to
make some assumptions as to the root cause
of the wait time issue. As an example, if you
had chosen the floor nurse communication
point in the previous question you might
choose to develop a policy around when to
bring in a translator or a multi-lingual colleague
(assuming you found the root cause to be
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3/16/23, 7:33 PM Problem Identification and Policy Development Transcript

difficulty communicating across language

barriers).
This question has not yet been answered.

There is no one correct answer to this question. Your answer will be highly
dependent on what assumptions you make as to the root cause of the wait
time issue. For example, if you assume that long wait times are being caused
by lack of provider availability, you may focus on scheduling or staffing policies.
If you assume that the unsatisfactory responses are a result of lengthy or
inefficient check-in, you may focus on policies to improve check-in procedures.

Question 3 of 3

Let us presume you have created a policy

around the use of overhead paging at St.
Anthony Medical Center in an effort to improve
satisfaction around hospital noise level. With
which stakeholder group(s) would be the most
important to create buy-in with for a successful
implementation of the policy?
This question has not yet been answered.

There is no single correct answer. However, floor nurses, specifically those who
are work overnight shifts, could be a primary stakeholder group for the policy
as they will have a role in implementing and abiding by the guidelines that will
likely be outlined in any overhead paging system policy. This is especially true if
the goal of the policy is to reduce nighttime noise.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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