Answering the patient's paging is a daily activity in patient care which is rarely identified and recognized. This can cause dissatisfaction of the patients and caregivers. A Quality Improvement Plan on paging was set up in an orthopedic ward to identify the reasons for paging so as to anticipate the requests, and improve the patient's safety and comfort. The objective was to reduce the number of calls over one year by 25% by setting up preventive actions. The study was renewed every year over a 14 days period and was based on a participative and declaratory procedure by the caregivers and students. Answering calls was a frequent practice (5 calls/hour) with a strong implication of nurse assistants (49%). Calls most frequently were related to elimination, comfort, pain and mobilization, in adequacy with the needs of the treated population. Due to a change of practice in the unit, the paging increased by 35% in 2006 especially concerning elimination (+62%). Answering patient's paging is a quality marker which evaluates the needs of the patients and the practices of caregivers Simple and costless preventive actions can be set up. It would be necessary to extend this indicator to the whole hospital and to complete it by an evaluation of patient satisfaction.
Hospital Communication Systems Humans