The Importance Of Stakeholders In Nursing Care

Strategic plan success is dependent on those who drive process change to achieve desired outcomes; hence, stakeholders are the drivers. The provision of education is essential to helping all stakeholders understand the ‘Why’ and need for change. Without their commitment to sharing accountability for improving the patient experience of care, the organization’s HCAHPS performance scores will remain status quo. Stakeholders need to understand the ramifications of remaining status quo – most importantly how this affects patient perceptions of the organization’s ability to provide quality health services. Engaging stakeholders in education and training is an investment that will return improvements in job satisfaction, quality of care, and ‘top-box’ rated patient experiences of care. Aligning stakeholders to meet strategic goals is an opportunity that cannot be overlooked.
Four stakeholder groups are identified that need to understand and support the goals of the strategic plan and include: 1) Board of Trustees/Executive Leadership; 2) Hospitalists; 3) Nursing; and 4) Pharmacy and Physical Therapy. The educational topics planned for the strategic plan kickoff include: 1) HCAHPS measures; 2) Hospital Compare Data; 3) Communication/Mindful Practice Strategies; 4) Hardwiring Practice; 5) Pain Management ; 6) Discharge Process/SMART form; 7)
Purposeful Rounding; and 8) Documentation. Each of these topics is applicable to the clinical stakeholders; therefore, each educational session will include all eight topics. The provision of education will begin at the Board of Trustees.
The educational plan for the governing board will not be as comprehensive as the plan for the clinical stakeholders. Hence, this presentation includes information about the HCAHPS survey measures, Hospital Compare data, and an overview of the strategic plan. Providing quality care is a part of the mission of the organization. As community leaders, they want to know that quality performance standards are meeting patient care expectations, as well as regulatory requirements. When deficiencies are recognized, the governing board must ensure that corrective action is being enforced to improve and correct the problem. Therefore, the Board of Trustees and the CEO will be interested in hearing about the planned strategic changes that will be implemented to improve the HCAHPS quality performance scores.
The remaining stakeholder groups will be required to attend one of the educational presentations offered during the strategic plan kickoff event.
The material will be comprehensive with respect to the eight topics previously mentioned. Although the providers, pharmacists, and therapists may not believe that all of this material is applicable to them, it is important for them to understand that the patient experience of care measures listed in this strategic plan do have components that affect each of them. Therefore, offering the same educational presentation to each of the four clinical stakeholder groups is
appropriate.