It's a simple set of five letters, but it can pay big dividends when you're interacting with patients.

Let's spell it out and communicate our best.

Acknowledge—The first letter of the AIDET acronym reminds each staff member or care provider along the patient’s path to acknowledge his or her presence. Making eye contact with a patient or giving the member a smile is all that’s needed.

Introduce—When you identify yourself by name, you change the patient’s visit from an anonymous interaction into a personalized experience.

Duration—A little information goes a long way. Letting patients know how long a visit is expected to take lets them know their time is valued. If a doctor is running late or the lab is behind, letting patients know about the delay and keeping them updated shows respect.

Explanation—Whose body is it? No one likes it when a caregiver starts doing something without telling a patient what they’re doing and why.

Thank you—The last step wraps up the visit by thanking the patient for coming in or for providing the information needed to provide them with excellent care.

For the second year in a row, the Northwest region experienced the fewest workplace injuries of any hospital-based region in Kaiser Permanente. The Northwest ended the 2011 reporting year with a 15 percent improvement over injury rates in 2010. (The two California regions, Hawaii and the Northwest operate hospitals, while Colorado, Georgia, the Mid-Atlantic States and Ohio do not.)

Workplace Safety Committee co-leads Marilyn Terhaar and Susan McGovern Kinard attribute the region’s success to several factors:

• Real-time information. Terhaar sends safety alert emails to managers, stewards, UBT co-leads and safety champions. The alerts list the injuries for the prior week and offer safety tips and resources.
• Goals at the frontline. Keeping injury rates low is a regional goal and a PSP goal. Unit-based teams are encouraged to work on these workplace safety issues prior to tackling other goals.
• Culture change. Safety conversations have become part of the workplace culture. If an employee sees someone not working safely or a hazard in the work area, she or he speaks up, knowing the problem will be addressed.
• Investigation. The approach to safety is proactive. The Employee Health and Safety department investigates the root cause of an accident and tries to make sure the accident does not happen again.

High cost to both employees and KP

Employee injuries are significant in several ways. An injured employee may lose pay and time at work, and a department may have to work short, which may impact patient care. And there’s a financial impact on the organization—which eventually could affect member premiums.

 “The cost to open a workers’ compensation claim is about $1,200 on average,” says Terhaar. “Once you start adding in medical and surgical costs, the expenses can soar.”

Indemnity claims—those claims that cover employees with more serious injuries that require a longer time off—average $21,000.

 “That’s one of the reasons we have such a laser focus on safe patient handling. The risk to the employee for injury is so great,” explains McGovern Kinard.

Prevention

The Northwest region employs a well-constructed safe patient handling program. New employees are trained on safe patient handling, and more than 1,000 employees were retrained in 2011. Hospital and clinic policies require staff to move patients using safe handling techniques and equipment.

 “We have mobile lifts and overhead lifts at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center and will have the same equipment at our new hospital opening next year,” says Paulette Hawkins, RN, a workplace safety consultant. “In addition, all medical and dental clinics have mobile lifts and receive annual hands-on refresher training on request.”

Members of the workplace safety committee aren’t resting on their laurels. This year, they plan to bring the focus of safety to the UBT level.

“Most teams can solve their own issues,” say McGovern Kinard. “There’s been an increase in awareness that’s been growing steadily over the last five years. Our numbers say it all.”

For nearly a year now, the Neonatal Intensive Care unit at the Fontana Medical Center has welcomed parents 24 hours a day, thanks to a unit-based team that put the patients’ needs first.

Since April 5, 2011, parents have been able to stay on the unit with the newest member of the family regardless of the hour and even during shift changes and rounding.

“The belief in family-centered care is put into action here,” says management co-lead Annette Adams, RN. “Nothing should come between parents and babies.”

Team members put themselves in the shoes of the parents whose children are treated on the unit: The distress of having a newborn baby staying anywhere other than right by your side, of having to leave your baby in the hands of strangers, and being told when you could come and see your own child.

Making it better for parents

Keeping the service point on the Value Compass in mind, the team looked inward to tackle the problem of concerned parents lacking 24-hour access to the unit.

The UBT began by researching what it takes to have successful open visitation in the NICU and what the benefits are for members and patients. The team found that many NICUs were not truly open to parents 24 hours a day, as parents were asked to leave during change-of-shift reports and physician rounds.

The UBT concentrated on how to make sure parents could remain, despite the concerns.

Shift reports are done at the bedside. But the NICU is one big room where anyone can hear anything. Team members researched how to solve this problem by asking how other Los Angeles-area NICUs, such as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, handle shift reports without compromising privacy.

Involved in shift hand-offs

Not only do parents now get to see their babies whenever they desire, they are also asked to participate when the physicians round and during the change of shift hand-off, which gives them the opportunity to meet the nurse assuming care of their baby.

“The belief that family-centered care is an essential part of each family’s experience was the driving philosophy behind the progressive move in visiting policy,” says Sheila Casteel, RN, the NICU team’s labor co-lead and UNAC/UHCP member.  

The representative team members enlisted help from the rest of the unit by introducing the concept through the monthly staff newsletter and giving presentations at staff meetings.

Unit staff members were asked for their ideas about how to overcome barriers—real and perceived. Some of the practices adopted included:

• moving the staff hand-off huddle outside the unit to the conference room
• making the relief and admitting nurse available to answer parent questions during hand-offs