Additionally, the overall Press Ganey scores may be influenced by factors beyond the admission process and the applied improvement procedures. It is difficult to discern whether there were any other factors that also contributed to the overall increase. However, the discharge score was a more direct measure specifically related to the modified procedures, and the temporal association of the intervention with the increased scores suggests that the intervention was responsible.
Conclusion
Standardization of the consent process ensures that all patients receive the necessary information every time in busy clinical settings. Incorporating an opportunity to “teach back” specific important information about the voluntary admission process, specifically what the 72-hour rule is, what the RTD form is, and the possibility of involuntary commitment, allows clinicians to assess capacity, while simultaneously allowing patients to have realistic expectations of the admission. Concise, standardized answers regarding these points minimizes variation in information being dispersed and decreases the possibility of omitting important information. At a major academic medical center, easy-to-implement quality improvement techniques significantly decreased patient confusion surrounding the 72-hour rule and the RTD form, along with the frequency in which these policies needed to be re-explained on the adult inpatient psychiatric unit. These changes ultimately led to improvement in patient satisfaction, as indicated by significant improvement in both overall and discharge patient satisfaction scores.
Corresponding author: Jennifer F. Newman, 475 Vine St., Winston-Salem, NC, 27101; jnewman9@u.rochester.edu.
Financial disclosures: None.