Zebra phones

Tori Miller will be talking about how her actions allowed us to change the way we are going to use our zebra phones. 

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Welcome to Nursing Together. I am here today with Tori Miller and we are here to talk about some exciting things that she has brought forth to me. Tori, before we get started, I'm gonna tell a little bit of the story. Some people have already heard it, but I wanna go ahead and at least let everybody know how we got started, why we went on this journey. And what your input was on it. So it really started off with me going around to units and having people using the walkie-talkies and maybe sometimes those walkie-talkies weren't used appropriately. And I made the executive decision without the input of the staff. To remove the walkie-talkies and get another form or another device called a zebra phone, which was more about having the call capability, being able to be in a room, talking to a doctor without having to come to the. Front desk or something along those lines. So why don't you go ahead and explain what happened at that point when all the walkie talkies disappeared and all of a sudden these zebra phones came? Yeah. On our unit I noticed a downward trend of teamwork and I thought, okay, at first maybe it's just adjusting to new technology. We did see a lot of benefits with the phones being able to call directly to tele from the room that was. One of the great things about it or calling up to the desk and asking someone to run and do something real quick, that helped. But one of the things that I noticed was that we weren't able to mass communicate with each other, and that was a really strong aspect of the unit that I liked when I joined four East. So we needed to find a way to try to. Reach people without having to call a direct person. And so I started looking into the zebra phones and seeing, okay, I understand we're not gonna get the radios back, but maybe there's something that we can do. And so I did a little bit of research and I think I had sent you a couple of links with different options of how to get a radio feature with the phone. And I had also tried to find any type of EBP that might go along with it. And one of the things that I found that I could attach with it was, being able to stay clean while communicating still. 'cause the biggest challenge I noticed with using the phones when I was in a room is that I would probably have my hands up under someone and not a great way to be able to get them out and get into my pocket and get a phone. You did reach out to me and you actually reached out to me through the CCNO qR code. Yes. And just reached out and said, Hey, is there a way that we could, I think actually what you said, could we get our walkie talkies back? And and I think I responded by saying no, but, and giving you my reasons why I didn't like the walkie talkies. I think you emailed me back saying, just so you know, zebra does have a feature. Here are some of the information on it. I said, okay, if you really feel like this is helping your team or your team is lacking because this feature is gone I asked you to go ahead and do a pilot for it. Yes. And we went ahead and we ended up getting the, zebras to just for your unit, go ahead and turn that feature on. So why don't you go ahead and explain what you did, at least the research wise. Not so much the research wise, but the evidence-based practice that you showed me to be able to show that this was actually helping your team. And the satisfaction that they got from that. Yeah. What we planned to do so that we could make sure that it included everyone on the unit was we were gonna take two weeks prior to turning on the feature and just get a little bit of feedback of where. Our issues were coming from. And so we started it at the start of a pay period, ran the two weeks, and we had just a whiteboard where we were using tally marks. And anytime that a nurse would try to call for help and couldn't reach someone, we had them put a tally down. Anytime they received a call from a patient that wasn't theirs and they didn't know who to route the call to, they put a tally down. There was a variety of things that we were putting tallies on, but the correlation that we saw is. A lot of it was they called and couldn't get help. And the other big one was that someone was receiving a call, but they couldn't answer 'cause their hands were tied. And so I was like, okay, at least I know that the data that I'm getting is. Truthful 'cause it's matching. So it correlated. That was really good. And there were some times where people were getting help on the first try, so we were trying to make sure we always had the positive number there, but it wasn't as frequently as we would've liked to have seen. And so at the end of that two weeks, we had the radio feature turned on. And we used the exact same issues that were brought up with the first trial and had them do the tally marks, and we saw a big decrease in the issues and a huge increase with the help came with the first try. It really helped there. And one thing that we didn't even think to. Measure. But we ended up seeing with our Press Ganey results was that the patient satisfaction with how quickly we were responding to their requests went from about 30% to 75%. Yeah. That was incredible. Yeah. Then that was a benefit that we didn't even know was going to happen. 'cause when we, me and you talked about this, really, it was more of a. Employee satisfaction. And we weren't really looking at the patient, maybe even outcome and or satisfaction. Because when me and you talked, we, it was really more about the employees and we were trying to both come together and meet in the middle and try to figure out what would work both on the nurses' side and administration side. Yes. And I am one to realize that sometimes. While I think my decisions might be correct or my assumptions might be correct, sometimes my assumptions are correct on certain things, but they're not correct on all things, and that's why I just find it so important and so thankful that you and others have reached out to me to say, Hey listen, this isn't really working like we want it to have you ever. Noticed or you ever tried. And so I was really appreciative that you came to me and said, at least give me a chance to show what this could do. So once you went through and you did the trial what did we do from that point? Where did we go with this information? So from there I was keeping up with everything on a spreadsheet and I went ahead and made charts just to make it easy to glance at. From there I think I sent it on to you and then, I wanna say Misty Watson, Paul Lyles were helping with it as well. So we sent it on to them as well. And then it's, I don't know, it's snowballed from there with a lot of different projects that we're doing on top of this now. Yeah. So you actually went to the manager's meeting. Yes. And you spoke at the manager's meeting. And a lot of that had to do with, the reason why I wanted you to present there was because I think part of what I was hearing from the managers were other units were having. Maybe the same issues or same complaints. I had you present to make sure that they were all in favor of it, which they were. Yes. And then from that point, you went to shared governance, and I believe you presented at shared governance and made sure that everybody was in favor of it through shared governance as well. Yes. Yeah. And so now we are actually. In the last stages of it. And so I do know that Misty just recently received some information from the Zebra to turn it on, so it's not as simple as everybody thinks. So it's just a mechanism that you switch on and it. All of a sudden works. It, there's additional costs that have to go with it. There's features that you have to make sure are turned on to be able to do it. And so we're going through that phase right now. So what we're hoping is hopefully by the end of, and I don't wanna make any promises because I just never know with vendors what it takes. But we're hoping that sometime in April, and hopefully no later than the end of April, that will have gone on throughout the whole hospital. Cool. And so there's one other kind of exciting thing that you did with this project. So why don't you tell everybody the one last thing that we decided to do with this project since it was such a success. Yeah. After we trialed everything, got all the data together and saw that it was really working, we. Put together an abstract to present to A ONL. And we submitted that at the end of January, and I'm hoping to hear something back very soon. I think by the end of this month we're supposed to hear something. Yeah, I think we're supposed to hear by the end of the month. Yeah. So that's super exciting as well. So if you had any advice for that frontline nurse, what would be the biggest advice that you would give them in regards to things that they want to see escalated within their units? Come with solutions. I think that's just an in general thing. If you've ever got a problem, you need to think about, okay, what can I do to help the problem or how can I help make it better? I've never seen anything positive really come from someone just coming to anyone with complaints. 'cause at that point it feels more like venting. And did you find it. Easy to work with. I know you reached out, but were you scared to work out, reach out? Were you afraid the answer was gonna be No. Ultimately, was it an easy process to work with? Because I think what I want people to know is that we can work together in regards to making this any. Intervention work. We just have to know the whys. Yeah. It was a really easy process. So I think I submitted it and then within not even 24 hours, I had already heard back from you. So it was a quicker process than I had anticipated going through the QR code. But no I wasn't scared. I felt like it was a very easy process. You heard me out. It was never a just final No. It was here's the reasons that I'm concerned. And then it was more of a conversation. To, I really appreciate everything that you did. I'm so excited that we move forward with this and I, I really am excited because it was a part of the phone or the part of the communication that I never even. Considered would disappear. I just automatically assumed that we would have the same type of communication and maybe even better because you would have the phone. So if the physician called you or a pharmacy called you or telemetry called you and you were in a patient's room, you weren't having to leave the patient's room. You could speak to them even if, especially if you were in the patient's room in regards to what you were calling about. Yeah. So I really, in my mindset was it was really more. I thought it was gonna be a satisfier. And what it really boiled down to was there was missing aspects to it. And I'm so glad that you brought this to me. I'm thankful that you took the time to actually research it. You took the time to do the pilot. And for us to have proven data to show that. So thank you once again for not only doing it but coming on and speaking about it and hopefully from this other people will be motivated and do the same thing. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you. And you have a wonderful day. Thanks, you too.