Evaluating the Communication and Accountability of Nurses in the Clinic Setting

Research has demonstrated the importance of effective communication and its relationship to positive patient, provider, and organizational outcomes. In the local organization, nursing staff verbalized concerns regarding lack of professional communication that may contribute to a hostile work environment and affect the quality of patient care delivered. To address this concern, the organization implemented a staff education program focused on effective communication practices and level of accountability. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine if the educational intervention focused on effective communication practices and level of accountability increased the participants’ perceptions of communication and accountability among nursing staff working in the organization and make recommendations for future use of the educational program. A total of 43 nurses attended the educational intervention. As part of the intervention, the participants completed a pre- and postintervention survey consisting of nine statements regarding their perceptions of communication and accountability in the organization, measured on a Likert scale of 1 to 7 with 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree. Twenty-seven nurses completed the preintervention survey and 15 nurses completed the postintervention survey. A Mann-Whitney-U test showed there was no statistical difference between the pre- and postintervention survey scores. Despite finding no statistical significance, the results demonstrated that the participants may have an understanding of the importance of communication and accountability in the organization that may be linked to improving positive social change through patient, provider, and organizational outcomes.