DNP Project - Improving Communication in Rural Healthcare via a Daily Leadership Huddle
Abstract
Background: A Midwestern rural health system piloted a 30-day leadership huddle to improve leader communication regarding critical events and situations affecting patient and staff safety. The pilot allows multidisciplinary and multi-level leaders to come together each day, focusing on the safety of their patients and staff.
Utilizing Kotter's Change Model as the theoretical framework, the nurse-designed and led pilot focuses on raising leader awareness about incidents in the previous and upcoming 24 hours that could affect patient and staff safety. Pilot elements include a voluntary pre-survey, a virtual daily huddle call that leaders have on their calendars as an appointment and a voluntary post-survey. The pre-and-post-Likert survey, completed by huddle participants, assesses their perception, feelings, and attitudes about communication of critical events before and after attending the 30-day huddle. The Chief Nursing Officer guided the 15-minute virtual huddle, attended daily by approximately 74 participants, capturing critical events and situations, some requiring investigation, follow-up, and the dissemination of learning for others to mitigate future occurrences.
Results: Leaders unanimously demonstrated increased satisfaction with communication post-huddle versus pre-huddle. The average daily participation rate at the end of the pilot was within 8% of the participation rate for weeks 1-4, indicating the information shared via the huddle was valuable enough for leaders to attend daily.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Communication failures contribute significantly to errors in healthcare. We will continue the daily leadership huddle based on the unanimous leadership team survey results indicating the perception of better communication after attending the huddles.