Paper
Sunday, November 4, 2007

137
This presentation is part of : Strategies for Workplace Excellence
Incorporating Childrens' Focus Group Data into Service Excellence Principles and Nurses' Evaluations
Carolyn Johnson, RN, MN, CNAA, Administration, Wolfson's Childrens Hospital, Jacksonville, FL, USA, Melissa Faciane, RN, BSN, ACNL, CPN, 6 Wolfson Pediatric/Cardiac and Surgical, Wolfson Children's Hospital, Jacksonville, FL, USA, and Patricia Kirkland, BS, CCLS, CHES, Child Life, 5W, Wolfson Children's Hospital, Jacksonville, FL, USA.
Learning Objective #1: describe how information provided by children's focus groups about their hospital experience can be incorporated into nurses' annual evaluations.
Learning Objective #2: identify 3 strategies to promote the successful iimplementation of children's focus groups aimed at providing information to improve nursing services.
Purpose:  To elicit the opinions of  patients, all children, about their hospital experience.  Their feedback was incorporated into the hospital’s principles of service excellence and criteria for nurses’ evaluations.  The desired outcome was to identify children’s needs, and hold nurses’ accountable for meeting those needs through yearly performance evaluations. The framework for the project was “Caring Science” (Jean Watson, 2005), and patient and family centered care.

Method:  Videotaped children’s focus groups provided the data for change. Children from the Children’s Advisory Council, with parental consent, were invited to participate.  Two major questions guided the discussion: What makes a great nurse great?  “ What makes a not so great nurse”? 

Results:  A person experienced in conducting focus groups with children led two 30 minute sessions.  Six children ages 8-17 participated; 3 in session one and 5 in session two (two children attended both sessions).  A nurse leader and Child Life Coordinator observed the sessions; independently analyzed the videotape; compiled a list of answers to each question; isolated key data elements; and compared, discussed and combined results into one data set for each question.  Data elements were reviewed for inclusion in the service principles and nurses’ evaluations, using the children’s own words whenever possible.  Examples of data elements are: Question 1: “makes me feel like it’s all about me”. Question 2 : “don’t tell you what they are doing or what’s going to happen”.   

Outcomes:  Children’s responses relevant and appropriate.  Once these changes in the documents were made, results were shared with the children, who believed their opinions were adequately reflected in the revised documents.

Conclusions:  1.  Children’s focus groups are an effective method to obtain valid data for organizational change.  2.  Children were eager to give their opinions, which were both diverse and sophisticated. 

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