How nurses and midwives engage with patient experience data to inform person-centred quality and safety improvements

To explore how nurses and midwives engage with patient experience data collected via a mobile health app to inform person-centred practice improvements.

A large amount of data is collected in healthcare, yet there is limited evidence outlining how nursing and midwifery staff utilise patient experience data to inform person-centred quality and safety improvements.

This study utilised action research, underpinned by Practice Development methodology and has been reported using the SQUIRE 2.0 checklist. Six clinical units (medical short stay, acute medical, surgical, oncology/haematology, day surgery and maternity) in a large health district in Australia engaged in three cycles of data collection using a mobile health app. The app captured patient experience data relating to the person-centred KPIs developed and tested by McCance et al. (2012). Staff used the data to develop and evaluate person-centred practice.

A number of improvements in scores and practice occurred through engaging with the data in a cyclical way. All six clinical units saw an improvement in four or more of the KPIs in the patient survey results from cycle one to cycle three, with two clinical units improving in all eight. On average across the six units, there was also an increase in time nurses/midwives were visible to their patients, an increase in clinical documentation reflecting the patients' needs and what was important to them, an increase in positive comments and a decrease in negative comments in patient stories.

This study shows that collecting and utilising data from the person-centred KPIs in a collaborative and cyclical way lead to enhanced patient experience and the development and implementation of person-centred quality and safety improvements.

Capturing and utilising data that are meaningful to nursing/midwifery teams in a cyclical, action-orientated approach result in person-centred practice improvements that enhance the experience of those that are receiving and delivering patient care.