Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Project – Full Written

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Committee Chair

Abby Garlock

Abstract

Health inequities due to communication barriers exist at a high rate for those who identify with limited English proficiency. This quality improvement project aimed to decrease these inequities by providing pre-translated discharge instructions (AVS) to patients who receive surgical services and recover in the pediatric post anesthesia care unit (PACU) of a state hospital. Specifically, this project examined if the availability of pre-translated instructions (SmartPhrases) increased nurse and interpreter satisfaction with the discharge process, and improved their perceived level of equitable care they are able to provide. Discharge instructions were gathered from the participating surgical and interventionist teams, and the PACU nursing staff drafted post-anesthesia care instructions. These instructions were then translated by interpreter services and entered into the charting system as SmartPhrases to be used by the teams. This project’s influence was analyzed by dispersing a survey using Likert-style questions to the nursing staff of the PACU and the interpreter services staff. The use of interpreter services was also analyzed by tracking requests made by the PACU nursing staff for 1 month. Results showed an increase in staff satisfaction in the discharge education process, as well as an improvement in their perceived level of care provided. This project provides a foundation for the use of SmartPhrases in discharge teaching for LEP patients, which is a critical step in providing equitable care to all patients.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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