Beebe Healthcare team works to improve geriatric patient care

Beebe Healthcare has been a Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders-designated hospital since 2011. The medical-surgical team initiated this project and has been working to implement evidence-based geriatric nursing protocols and interventions to ensure attention to the special needs of geriatric patients over 65.

This year the NICHE team, along with nursing informatics, developed and implemented the Geriatric Specific Needs Plan of Care. This IPOC provides interventions for nurses to use to help prevent geriatric syndromes such as delirium, skin breakdown, incontinence and functional decline.

Beebe's NICHE team presented a poster at the National NICHE Conference in April in Orlando. The poster, Development of an Electronic Plan of Care to Prevent Geriatric Syndromes, displayed the plan of care as well as the post-implementation data: increased staff awareness of NICHE goals, improved communication between the nurse/nursing assistant care team, and increased patient satisfaction.

This is the second year the medical-surgical team has presented its work at the NICHE National Conference. In 2014, the team submitted its abstract and data to the NICHE organization and was selected to present its work implementing NICHE at Beebe during the annual conference in San Diego.

The medical-surgical team at Beebe currently has 12 geriatric resource nurses and four geriatric patient care associates. The team meets monthly to make plans and review case studies. The GRNs are required to continue their education in the NICHE program to stay current with best practices. Team members then act as peer consultants and educators to staff, patients and families, and work to ensure best practice concepts are embedded in the unit culture. The team is working to expand the GRN program in the emergency department and beginning implementation in the orthopaedic department.

“The entire 3MS team strives daily to provide special attention to the geriatric populations needs, and per its Press Ganey patient satisfaction report, over the past 12 months, 3MS ranks at the 97th percentile in ‘attention to special/personal needs of the population age 65 and older,’” said Margaret Porter, 3MS and NICHE nurse manager, Beebe Healthcare.