Description

Whole Health is a model designed to address multiple patient needs. This includes physical and spiritual wellness, personal surroundings, nutrition, relationships, and mental wellness. The Whole Health approach focuses on improving overall patient wellness and includes increased availability of complementary and alternative medicine services. While some Whole Health work is being done at outpatient facilities, this study seeks to expand and test this approach to the inpatient setting, given the potential Whole Health has for addressing patient wellness.

The goal of this study is to implement and evaluate an inpatient Whole Health Bundle intervention to improve hospitalized patients' well-being. This study will assess if implementing an Inpatient Whole Health Bundle is associated with improved patient-centric outcomes (such as perceptions of the healing environment and patient satisfaction) among hospitalized patients.

This is a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test trial. The study will be conducted at one Veterans Affairs hospital. Study subjects will be hospitalized patients. The study will be conducted in 2 phases- pre-intervention and intervention. Each study phase will last 2-months on each study unit. During the pre-intervention phase, a sample of patients recently discharged from the hospital will be mailed a study survey. The survey will ask questions about their satisfaction with their hospital stay.

During the intervention phase, patients staying in the hospital will be asked if they would like to participate in the study. Participants will be offered a menu of items and services that could help improve their overall well-being and their hospital stay. Patient will be free to choose or decline any of the items on the menu. A researcher will record which items, if any, a patient selects. Patients in the intervention will be mailed the same study survey as the pre-intervention phase after they are discharged from the hospital. Researchers will compare patient satisfaction responses between patients staying in the hospital during the pre-intervention phase to those who participated in the intervention. A few patients will be asked to participate in a study interview. The interviews are to better understand intervention experiences as well as barriers and facilitators to improving patient satisfaction with their hospital stay. In addition, unit level metrics will be assessed between the pre-intervention and intervention time periods.