Ongoing Innovation

Davee Innovations: Optimizing Communication in the Emergency Department is a two-year study ending in the summer of 2009, however, the information gathered through this project will shape the future of communication in the Northwestern Memorial Hospital emergency department, as well as others.

History of Davee Innovations

Davee Innovations has conducted several Beta-tests and made improvements to ED communications. We've tested the idea of having one nurse on duty at high trafic times who is specifically dedicated to communicating. We revised volunteer roles to emphasize communication of ED processes. We implemented educational sessions and installed new tools to highlight the importance of communication within the institutional culture of a busy ED.

• The Nurse Liaison serves as point person for waiting patients by fielding questions and addressing concerns. The nurse liaison also oversees ED volunteer activities, coordinates communication with primary care physicians, and conducts follow up calls with patients at risk of not understanding the next steps in their care.

• Emergency Department Volunteer Advocates are volunteers who receive extensive training on ED processes. They are experienced at answering patient questions and are able to provide comfort measures such as warm blankets or food, when appropriate, to patients in the waiting room and in the treatment areas.

• We held extensive training sessions with over 70 per cent of the ED staff. These sessions emphasized the importance of careful communication and gave insight into patients' needs and barriers to great communication. The formal educational sessions were followed up with brief reminder sessions and with a poster series. To learn more, please click on education in the lefthand column.

• Tools designed by Davee Innovations to enhance communication include the brochure Guide to your Emergency Department Visit, posters in the waiting room to help inform patients, white boards in the treatment rooms where care providers can note their names and other pertinant information for patients, the poster series Top 10 for Communication in the ED, and much more.

Additionally, Davee Innovations is measuring the successes of these projects, using pre- and post- tests to measure improvement and tracking patient satisfaction ratings as we implement new measures.

Future of ED Communications

Changing the way a group of people communicate doesn't happen over night, but it does happen with focused efforts. The NMH ED has made a major commitment to improving communications: an ED Communications team has beed assembled and made a permanent fixture of the operations team in our department. This team is examining the best practices and obstacles for every phase of a patient's stay in the ED, and all aspects of communication among ED caregivers. A priority for this team is to develop "key phrases at key moments," a set of statements that can be modified and used by ED caregivers when they are engaged in important, sensitive conversations with patients. This team also seeks to streamline hand-offs: improving communication between emergency room doctors and primary care physicians and between emergency room doctors and doctors in other departments of the hospital.

Part of the mission of Davee Innovations is to share our findings on improving emergency department communications with our peers. Our finding are being disseminated through poster presentations at conferences and article publications in peer reviewed journals.

For more information on any of these project areas, please email Fritze Roberts, Davee Innovations Communication Project Coordinator.