Abstract

Objectives: The increasing behavioral acuity and complexity of hospitalized patients overwhelms providers’ capacity to effectively manage their behaviors. Hospitals must train their providers in how to cope with these behaviors to provide high-quality care. In addition to improved patient care, increased capacity to manage these challenging patients may improve resilience and reduce the risk and rates of provider burnout. We created a novel service to address this need via point-of-care resources. This service dually helped providers manage disruptive behaviors while training them to manage these behaviors more autonomously in the future. We tracked the impact of this service on physician and staff satisfaction.

Methods: We sent pre- and postimplementation surveys consisting of five-point Likert and free-response questions to a convenience sample of providers to assess their attitudes and perceived comfort level, as well as their subjective strengths and weaknesses when managing complex behaviors.

Results: Pre- and postintervention analyses of qualitative data revealed that staff members were more satisfied with the available resources for managing disruptive patients following implementation of this service than before its implementation. The majority of respondents believed previously unmet needs were frequently addressed through service involvement and consultation.

Conclusions: In University Hospital at Michigan Medicine, this novel service improved physicians’ and staff’s perceptions of available education and supportive resources for patients’ behaviors, as well as their comfort in psychiatric and behavioral symptom management, including nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic interventions.