Purpose of the paper: The paper intends to contribute to continuous improvement in health care services by “reading” the story of the inpatient’s stay through his or her own 5 senses. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are all employed in the perception of reality. In health care, senses also influence clinical outcomes. The sensory perceptions of inpatients and of their relatives or friends may benefit significantly from improvements that do not require prohibitive investment on the part of hospital managements, nor either radical changes to their systems. The paper aims to offer some suggestions to hospital management on ways to improve service receivers’ sensory perceptions. Methodology: It is a conceptual paper with a prescriptive aspect. The descriptions of sensory stimuli that the inpatient receives come from an examination of the literature and from personal experience acquired by the authors as patients and bystanders. The 5 senses ward model and the check list derive from the literature and the thoughts of the authors. Findings: The paper proposes a simplified system model for service provision in the hospital ward (5 Senses Ward), where not only physical evidence but also contact personnel transmit sensory stimuli to the patients and to bystanders. The paper provides a management tool in the form of a check-list which the ward can management employ in the assessment of its own service system as seen from the 5 senses perspective. Research limits: The work is conceptual and speculative, and hence includes subjective judgments. It has not yet been possible to carry out trials of the model and the check-list in the working environment of hospital wards. It is possible that some terminological misunderstandings could be encountered as these are communicated to management teams having a clinical culture, so it may be that certain categories have to be reformulated. Practical implications: once up and running, the model and the check list will be able to guide healthcare managers towards quality improvements: not only in terms of quality as perceived by the patient and bystanders but also in terms of quality of the working environment and even in terms of quality of clinical outcomes. Originality of the paper: While the positive results of improvements of a single sensory perception of inpatients have been well documented (for example noise reduction), the integrated approach set forth in the check-list would not appear to have been put forward previously.
“A 5 senses perspective to quality in hospitals”
BACCARANI, Claudio;UGOLINI, Marta Maria
2013-01-01
Abstract
Purpose of the paper: The paper intends to contribute to continuous improvement in health care services by “reading” the story of the inpatient’s stay through his or her own 5 senses. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are all employed in the perception of reality. In health care, senses also influence clinical outcomes. The sensory perceptions of inpatients and of their relatives or friends may benefit significantly from improvements that do not require prohibitive investment on the part of hospital managements, nor either radical changes to their systems. The paper aims to offer some suggestions to hospital management on ways to improve service receivers’ sensory perceptions. Methodology: It is a conceptual paper with a prescriptive aspect. The descriptions of sensory stimuli that the inpatient receives come from an examination of the literature and from personal experience acquired by the authors as patients and bystanders. The 5 senses ward model and the check list derive from the literature and the thoughts of the authors. Findings: The paper proposes a simplified system model for service provision in the hospital ward (5 Senses Ward), where not only physical evidence but also contact personnel transmit sensory stimuli to the patients and to bystanders. The paper provides a management tool in the form of a check-list which the ward can management employ in the assessment of its own service system as seen from the 5 senses perspective. Research limits: The work is conceptual and speculative, and hence includes subjective judgments. It has not yet been possible to carry out trials of the model and the check-list in the working environment of hospital wards. It is possible that some terminological misunderstandings could be encountered as these are communicated to management teams having a clinical culture, so it may be that certain categories have to be reformulated. Practical implications: once up and running, the model and the check list will be able to guide healthcare managers towards quality improvements: not only in terms of quality as perceived by the patient and bystanders but also in terms of quality of the working environment and even in terms of quality of clinical outcomes. Originality of the paper: While the positive results of improvements of a single sensory perception of inpatients have been well documented (for example noise reduction), the integrated approach set forth in the check-list would not appear to have been put forward previously.
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