Intradisciplinary Nursing Communication Post Hospital Merger: A Quality Improvement Project Using Online Communities of Practice in the ICU

After hospital mergers, unit work environments are at risk of being unhealthy due to poor intradisciplinary two-way communication in times of change. This quality improvement project explored the impact a 4-week, social media-based, intradisciplinary communication strategy had on a post-merger ICU work environment. The sample (N = 14) included eleven ICU bedside nurses (78.6%) and three administrative nurses (21.4%) working in a 22 bed southwestern United States medical center ICU. The nurses participated in a Facebook closed group community of practice called N2N, a total 25.9% participation rate. Eleven nurses completed the pre-N2N survey, a 20.4% completion rate, while eight nurses completed the post-N2N survey, a 14.8% completion rate. The overall skilled communication score increased to 3.79 after N2N completion, a .06 improvement. Question 3, which measured zero tolerance behavior perception, jumped from 3.91 to 4.00 after N2N, a 0.9 improvement, boosting this metric to excellent status. N2N utilization data revealed 68 comments posted within the four week N2N implementation, with 56 showing horizontal communication (73.5%) and 24 displaying vertical communication (26.5%). Of the 68 comments, 12 utilized both horizontal and vertical communication simultaneously (17.6%). Views were plentiful, with a total of 217 ICU bedside nurse views (81.3%) and 50 administrative nurse views (18.7%) noted. The online communication-focused community of practice demonstrated feasibility to enhance communication among bedside and administrative nurses working in an ICU setting. Intradisciplinary communication strategies such as online communities of practice via social media was feasible for enhancing communication among one post-merger ICU work environment.A three-year embargo was granted for this item