PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop an informational leaflet on emergency care and to explore effects of facilitative nurse-patient interaction behavior using an informational leaflet on patient satisfaction with nurse-patient interaction behavior, patient anxiety, and patient satisfaction with use of emergency care. METHODS: This study was a quasi-experimental study that applied a nonequivalent control-group posttest-only design. The participants were 81 patients who visited the emergency department of a hospital in Korea; the experimental group (n=40) received facilitative nurse-patient interaction behavior using an informational leaflet, and the control group (n=41) received care under routine protocols without an information leaflet. The effects of the two groups were analyzed using an independent t-test with SPSS computer program. RESULTS: Patient satisfaction with nurse-patient interaction behavior and use of emergency care in the experimental group were significantly higher than in the control group. Patient anxiety related to using emergency care in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group. CONCLUSION: Therefore, facilitative nurse-patient interaction behavior using an informational leaflet to the patient may be useful interventions that are easily implemented by nurses in emergency settings.
Anxiety ; Emergencies ; Emergency Medical Services ; Emergency Nursing ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Humans ; Korea ; Non-Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Nurse-Patient Relations ; Patient Satisfaction

PURPOSE: Current increase and complexity of medical tests and surgical procedures at outpatient department (OPD) require OPD nurses to have customer orientation focusing on various customers' interests and needs. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors associated with customer orientation in nurses working at OPD of hospitals. METHODS: The study used a descriptive correlational design with cross-sectional survey. The study settings were four general hospitals in Seoul and its metropolitan area. Data were collected from 138 OPD nurses from general hospitals. Study variables were personal traits, emotional intelligence, internal marketing, service management and customer orientation. RESULTS: Factors associated with customer orientation were identified as conscientiousness from personal traits (β .37, p < .001), emotional intelligence from individual characteristics (β .21, p = .032), and internal marketing from environmental characteristics (β .21, p = .001). CONCLUSIONS: Hospital administrators should support OPD nurses to cultivate sincere and sociable personal traits and emotional intelligence, and to consider employees as internal customers to improve patient-oriented services and satisfaction.
Adult ; Attitude of Health Personnel ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; *Emotional Intelligence ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Marketing/*methods ; Middle Aged ; *Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/*psychology ; Organizational Culture ; Outpatient Clinics, Hospital/*organization & administration ; Outpatients/*psychology ; *Patient-Centered Care ; Seoul ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: This research was an empirical study designed to identify precursors and interaction effects related to nurses' patient identification behavior. A multilevel analysis methodology was used. METHODS: A self-report survey was administered to registered nurses (RNs) of a university hospital in South Korea. Of the questionnaires, 1114 were analyzed. RESULTS: The individual-level factors that had a significantly positive association with patient identification behavior were person-organization value congruence, organizational commitment, occupational commitment, tenure at the hospital, and tenure at the unit. Significantly negative group-level precursors of patient identification behavior were burnout climate and the number of RNs. Two interaction effects of the person-organization value congruence climate were identified. The first was a group-level moderating effect in which the negative relationship between the number of RNs and patient identification behavior was weaker when the nursing unit's value congruence climate was high. The second was a cross-level moderating effect in which the positive relationship between tenure at the unit and patient identification behavior was weaker when value congruence climate was high. CONCLUSION: This study simultaneously tested both individual-level and group-level factors that potentially influence patient identification behavior and identified the moderating role of person-organization value congruence climate. Implications of these results are discussed.
Adult ; Attitude of Health Personnel ; Female ; Humans ; Interprofessional Relations ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/organization & administration/*psychology ; Organizational Culture ; *Patient Identification Systems ; Questionnaires ; Workplace

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of regular nursing rounds on patient satisfaction with nursing care. METHODS: This was a controlled clinical trial in which 100 hospitalized patients in a medical surgical ward were allocated to control and experimental groups through convenience sampling. The experimental group received regular nursing rounds every 1e2 hours. Routine care was performed for the control group. Patient satisfaction with the quality of nursing care was assessed on the second and fifth days of hospitalization in both groups using Patient Satisfaction with Nursing Care Quality Questionnaire. RESULTS: On the second day, patient satisfaction scores of the two groups had no significant difference (p = .499). However, the intervention was associated with statistically significant increased patient satisfaction in the experimental group compared to the control group (p < .001). CONCLUSION: Implementing regular nursing rounds had a positive impact on patient satisfaction. This method may hence improve patient-nurse interactions and promote the quality of nursing care and patient satisfaction.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Iran ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nurse's Practice Patterns/*organization & administration ; *Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Staff, Hospital ; *Patient Satisfaction ; Questionnaires ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: This study was done to propose an improvement in the Nursing Fee Differentiation Policy to alleviate polarization of nursing staffing level among hospitals and to rectify the confusion of legally mandated standards between the Korean Medical Law and National Health Insurance Act. METHODS: The policy regulation was reconstructed related to nurse staffing standards and nurse-to-patients ratios. Data on nurse staffing grades were obtained from database of the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) for the third quarter of 2010 for 44 tertiary hospitals, 274 general hospitals, and 1,262 hospitals. A break-even analysis was used to estimate financial burden of the revised policy improvement proposal. An industrial engineering method was used to calculate Nurse-to-Patients ratios per shift. RESULTS: Twelve tertiary hospitals were downgraded. 74 general hospitals and 102 hospitals were upgraded after application of the regulation. Finances for total hospitalization expenditures changed from -3.55% to +3.14%. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the proposed policy would decrease polarization between tertiary hospitals and small hospitals, and would not put a major strain on the finances of the Korean National Health Insurance. Therefore, it is suggested that government stake-holders and many interest groups consider this policy proposal and build a consensus.
Consensus ; Fees and Charges* ; Financial Management ; Health Expenditures ; Hospital Charges ; Hospitalization ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Insurance, Health ; Jurisprudence ; Methods ; National Health Programs* ; Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Administration Research ; Nursing Staff ; Nursing* ; Public Opinion ; Tertiary Care Centers

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to propose optimal hospitalization fees for nurse staffing levels and to improve the current nursing fee policy. METHODS: A break-even analysis was used to evaluate the impact of a nursing fee policy on hospital's financial performance. Variables considered included the number of beds, bed occupancy rate, annual total patient days, hospitalization fees for nurse staffing levels, the initial annual nurses' salary, and the ratio of overhead costs to nursing labor costs. Data were collected as secondary data from annual reports of the Hospital Nursing Association and national health insurance. RESULTS: The hospitalization fees according to nurse staffing levels in general hospitals are required to sustain or decrease in grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7, and increase in grades 5 and 6. It is suggested that the range between grade 2 and 3 be sustained at the current level, the range between grade 4 and 5 be widen or merged into one, and the range between grade 6 and 7 be divided into several grades. CONCLUSION: Readjusting hospitalization fees for nurse staffing level will improve nurse-patient ratio and enhance the quality of nursing care in hospitals. Follow-up studies including tertiary hospitals and small hospitals are recommended.
Bed Occupancy/economics ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Hospitals, General/*economics ; Humans ; National Health Programs/*economics ; Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Care ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/economics

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to discover patients loyal to a hospital and model their medical service usage patterns. Consequently, this study proposes a data mining application in customer relationship management (CRM) for hospital inpatients. METHODS: A recency, frequency, monetary (RFM) model has been applied toward 14,072 patients discharged from a university hospital. Cluster analysis was conducted to segment customers, and it modeled the patterns of the loyal customers' medical services usage via a decision tree. RESULTS: Patients were divided into two groups according to the variables of the RFM model and the group which had significantly high frequency of medical use and expenses was defined as loyal customers, a target market. As a result of the decision tree, the predictable factors of the loyal clients were; length of stay, certainty of selectable treatment, surgery, number of accompanying treatments, kind of patient room, and department from which they were discharged. Particularly, this research showed that when a patient within the internal medicine department who did not have surgery stayed for more than 13.5 days, their probability of being a classified as a loyal customer was 70.0%. CONCLUSIONS: To discover a hospital's loyal patients and model their medical usage patterns, the application of data-mining has been suggested. This paper suggests practical use of combining segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP) strategy and the RFM model with data-mining in CRM.
Data Mining ; Decision Trees ; Hospital-Patient Relations ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Internal Medicine ; Length of Stay ; Patient Satisfaction ; Patient-Centered Care ; Patients' Rooms

PURPOSE: This study was done to develop tool to evaluate the core competencies regarding nursing cancer patients on chemotherapy, and to verify the reliability and efficacy of the developed tool. METHODS: A tool to evaluate the core competencies was developed from a preliminary tool consisting of 112 items verified by expert groups. The adequacy of the preliminary tool was analyzed and refined to the final evaluation tool containing 76 items in 8 core competencies and 18 specific competencies. The evaluation tool is in the form of a self-report, and each item is evaluated according to a 3-point scale. From September 22 to October 14, 2011, 349 survey responses were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and the WINSTEPS program that employs the Rasch model. RESULTS: Results indicated that there were no inappropriate items and the items had low levels of difficulty in comparison with the knowledge levels of the study participants. The results of factor analysis yielded 18 factors, and the reliability of the tools was very high with Cronbach's alpha=.97. CONCLUSION: The results of this study can be used for training and evaluation of core competencies for nursing cancer patients, and for standardizing nursing practices associated with chemotherapy.
Adult ; Antineoplastic Agents/*therapeutic use ; Female ; Focus Groups ; Humans ; Male ; Neoplasms/*drug therapy ; Nurse's Practice Patterns ; Nurse-Patient Relations ; *Nursing Evaluation Research ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/*psychology ; *Program Development ; Program Evaluation ; Questionnaires

INTRODUCTIONPrevious studies on patient acceptance of medical student teaching were from Western populations and in one setting only. However, there has been no prospective study comparing patient acceptability before and after an actual experience. We studied patient acceptability of medical student teaching in private and public family practices and public hospital specialist outpatient clinics in Singapore, and before and after an actual medical student teaching consultation.

MATERIALS AND METHODSWe conducted an anonymous cross-sectional survey from March through October 2007 of Singaporean or permanent resident patients attending 76 teaching private family practices, 9 teaching public family practices and 8 specialty clinics in a teaching public hospital. We used pre-consultation cross-sectional patient surveys in all three settings. For private family practice setting only, post-consultation patient survey was conducted after an actual experience with medical student presence.

RESULTSOut of 5123 patients, 4142 participated in the cross-sectional survey (80.9%) and 1235 of 1519 patients in the prospective cohort study (81.3%). Eighty percent were comfortable with medical students present, 79% being interviewed and 60% being examined. Regarding being examined by medical students, parents of children were least comfortable while patients between 41 to 60 years were most comfortable (adjusted OR = 1.99 [1.55-2.57]). Females were less comfortable with medical student teaching than males. Chinese patients were the least comfortable about being interviewed or examined by medical students among the ethnic groups. Indians were most comfortable with being interviewed by medical students (adjusted OR = 1.38 [1.02-1.86]) but Malays were the most comfortable being examined by them (adjusted OR = 1.32 [1.07-1.62]). Family practice patients were more receptive to medical student teaching than the hospital's specialist outpatients. Common barriers to patient acceptance were lack of assurance of patient privacy, dignity and confidentiality. Actual exposure to medical student teaching did not change levels of patient acceptance.

CONCLUSIONSCompared to similar studies from Western countries, Asian patients appear to be less receptive to medical student teaching than Western patients. Family practice settings offer medical students a more receptive learning environment.

Adult ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Family Practice ; Female ; Health Care Surveys ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Odds Ratio ; Outpatient Clinics, Hospital ; Patient Satisfaction ; Physician-Patient Relations ; Private Practice ; Students, Medical ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop evaluation criteria for conversations about medication and to demonstrate conversational analysis with actual dialogues on medication as examples. METHODS: This study was a secondary analysis of qualitative research using conversational analysis which showed functional phases and patterns of dialogue about medication (greeting, identifying the patient, medicating, finishing). Nurse-patient conversations were videotaped and transcribed and 75 conversations were used for analysis. RESULTS: Not all functional phases were showed in the conversations about medication. Therefore, conversations about medication can be considered as incomplete dialogues. The evaluation-criteria were represented in terms of the structure and content of the dialogues. Structural evaluation-criteria were the same as the functional phases, as functional stage is the standard for evaluation. The criteria of evaluation for content suggested 3 domains, content, expression, and interaction with 20 items scored on a Likert-type scale of 5-points. Finally, analysis of actual conversations about medication according to the evaluative criteria were provided. CONCLUSION: The results provide the basic data to develop educational programs and strategies to improve nurses' competency in conversation about medication.
Clinical Competence ; *Communication ; Humans ; Medication Adherence ; *Nurse-Patient Relations ; Nursing Staff, Hospital/*psychology ; *Pharmaceutical Preparations ; Videotape Recording