Patient Input on Obstacles to Sleep Helps Focus One Unit’s Improvement Efforts
Do you know anyone who’s ever had a good night’s sleep in the hospital? As nurses, we hear the complaints; as patients ourselves, or as family members of patients, we’ve been there.
Differing views on the source of a unit’s sleep problem.
After their hospital’s 20-bed telemetry unit received a low HCAHPS survey score on a quiet-at-night question, nurse practitioner Christian Karl Antonio and his colleagues at a northern California community hospital took on the challenge of improving patients’ sleep experience on the unit.
Before designing an intervention, they spoke with patients as well as staff, and were surprised to learn that the two groups see the problem differently.
“Patients perceived being awakened for vital signs, blood draws, and medication administration as the most frequently occurring factors that contributed to noise at night. On the other hand, staff members perceived that noise at night came from staff conversations, equipment with alarms, announcements on the paging system, and delivery carts, among other sources.”
