Dance of the Call Bells: Patient’s Satisfactory Coursework

Problem statement

The problem that the researcher wanted to find out is the role that call bells have on the quality of patient care. The researcher wanted to find out the role that the quality of patient care has towards the perceptions and satisfaction of patients in a hospital. It is known that ethnographic methods have a role to play in improving the quality of patient care. The researcher sought to find out the effect that the quality of health care is affected by emic and etic factors.

Literature review critique

The researcher used concise literature to get to understand the culture and how it affects the quality of health care. The literature is specific because the researcher focuses specifically on culture and ethnography. The researcher uses literature that is relevant to the study. Secondary sources of literature were used in the researcher (Deitrick, Bokovoy, Stern, & Panik, 2006). The literature review can, therefore, be said to be concise, relevant, and comprehensive in the study.

Research questions

The researcher was guided by the following research questions:

1. What role do call bells have in the provision of quality patient care?
2. What perceptions do clinical staff employees have towards call bells?
3. What effect does assigning someone to answer the call bells have on service delivery?
4. How do call bells affect service delivery in hospitals?

Research design

The research will employ a descriptive survey design. The descriptive survey design was chosen because it is appropriate for fact-finding and yields a great deal of information, which is accurate. It also enables a researcher to gather data at a point in time and use it to describe the nature of the existing conditions (Bryman, & Bell, 2007).

Sampling

The sample size of the study is shown in table 1.

Table 1 Sample size. Source: (Author, 2012).

The sampling procedure adopted was purposive in each department. The sampling technique and the sample size are appropriate for the study. This is because it takes care of all the participants and is representative of the whole person in a hospital.

Variables

The variables that were used in this study are the quality of care. This is the independent variable. The other variable is patient satisfaction. This is the independent variable. These two variables were adequately defined in the study. They are clearly shown and defined for the initial set of the study.

Method of data collection

The method of data collection that was used in the study is the interviews schedule. This method is appropriate in the study as the right personnel were conducted and their honest views were obtained from the study.

Issues of rigor

The measurement is designed to measure the purpose that the research instrument is to measure. Validity is the extent to which differences found with a measuring instrument reflect true differences among those being tested. For the validity of this instrument, the researcher sought guidance from other researchers and scholars in the institution.

Legal issues and ethical considerations

The information gathered from participants was kept in confidence and only used for the study. It is assumed that this information will not be revealed to anybody without the participants’ consent. The participants will be informed of the purpose of the research. The researcher will preserve the anonymity of the informant by not writing the names of all those involved in the research.

Since these are patients that are being researched, their ailment and clinical data will not be part of the research, and they will not appear anywhere in the study. It is illegal to falsely access patient data without the hospital’s permission.

Limitations

One limitation that I realize in the study is that the researcher based customer satisfaction on ethnographic issues. The reluctance of nurses and nurse aides could be a result of organizational behavior. There could be work overload to the staff members and could be the reason as to why they are not willing to answer the bell. The researcher dwelt more on the cultural issues and did not look more into how hospitals and healthcare institutions are structured.

Findings

The researcher found out that most nurses and nurse aides assume that the call bell can be answered by people other than them. They expect that the call bell should be answered by people.

Implications

Nurse education should be comprehensive and should include the implications of some nursing procedures. The nursing practice should include other procedures like answering calls for both physicians and patients.

Nursing education should be structured to include aspects of patient calls and their implications. They should be taught that patient calls are as important as their medical procedures.

Recommendation

Further research should be undertaken so that other hospital aspects like its structure and roles and responsibilities should be analyzed. The roles of nurses and nurse aides should be clearly defined. The organizational structure of the hospital should be analyzed.

References

Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2007). Business research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Deitrick, L., Bokovoy, J., Stern, G., & Panik, A. (2006). Dance of the Call Bells: Using Ethnography to Evaluate Patient satisfaction With Quality of Care. Journal of Nursing Care Qualit. 21 (4), 316-324.