Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
9-28-2026
First Advisor
Sandy King
Abstract
A needs assessment at a rural hospital revealed an opportunity for improvement in discharge planning. The purpose and aim of this project was to improve nurses’ confidence in the discharge process and improve Press Ganey survey scores in communication about medicine domain and discharge information domain. Inadequate discharge planning leads to poor patient outcomes, concern for patient safety, increased healthcare costs, and inferior patient satisfaction. The quality improvement (QI) project utilized a one-group pretest/posttest QI design. An evidence-based, standardized discharge tool was implemented. The Susan Grundy confidence scale (C-Scale) was used to evaluate nurses’ confidence in the discharge process pre- and post-intervention. Press Ganey survey scores were evaluated pre- and post-implementation. Lewin’s change theory was used as a guide to plan for changing the discharge process and Dr. David Sackett’s observation, wisdom and learning (OWL) model as the basis for theoretical framework. The implementation framework was the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for both variables due to ordinal data and small sample size. Total confidence scores did not differ significantly from the pre- and post-intervention scores, W = 0.00, exact p-value .500, effect size was 1.00. The communication about medicines domain increased while discharge information domain declined. Press Ganey findings were mixed rather than showing an expected consistent improvement, p = 1.000, W = 1.00. The intervention will need to be prolonged to evaluate a more extensive dataset due to limited Press Ganey responses in the 12-week implementation period at this small rural hospital. Additionally, nurse confidence post-intervention data were limited due to lack of participation with only six respondents and two matching identifiers.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Ledbetter, Cristan, "The Impact of Implementing a Discharge Tool on Nurses’ Confidence and Press Ganey Patient Survey Scores in Discharge Planning" (2026). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 389.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/389
