Future Steps: Bringing Awareness on Disability and Disability Accommodations in Acute Care

Location: Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL

Areas of Focus: Program Development/Evaluation and Research

Content Expert Mentor: Lindsay Ardiff, PT, DPT

Site Coordinator: Colleen Hogan, OTD, OTR/L (Occupational Therapy Education Coordinator)

Dates: April 6, 2026 to July 10, 2026

Purpose Statement

To improve patient experience and outcomes by bringing awareness through implementation interventions (education) for healthcare staff focused on disability accommodations available at NM and other resources related to etiquette, communication, and documentation on EHR. I hope that my projects help increase accessibility, communication barriers, and overall patient experience. I want to continue increasing inclusion in the acute care settings at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where disability, culture, language, health literacy, and more, are taken into consideration.

Summary of Capstone Project

Mentioned in Rotoli et al, 2023, “People with disabilities experience barriers to care in all facets of healthcare, from engaging with the provider (attitudinal and communication barrier) to navigating a large institution in a complex health care environment (organizational and environmental barriers).” Many times, patients feel the need to proceed with healthcare interactions without the necessary accommodations (such as language, hearing, or visual accommodations), leading to increased medical errors and decreased health outcomes (2023). Environment, program quality, and care are important to improve patient outcomes and patient participation; it is important for institutions and providers to continue implementing best practices and solutions. Within my time here at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) I focused on program development and evaluation and research through a needs assessment report, learning skills on quality improvement to improve patient outcomes, implement quality improvement interventions, and participating in conducting patient interviews through an IRB approved qualitative research study.

From my needs assessment, connection and communication with unit leaders and other department stakeholders, my learned skills in program development, and participation in qualitative research, I hope to continue the efforts in improving patient quality care and building upon NM’s mission to put patients first. Steps to do this include learning new quality improvement models, creating an implementation plan for future steps, educating nursing and rehabilitation staff via presentations and educational material, and having the opportunity to create educational slides that will be presented during Professional Development Days (PDDs) for new incoming nursing staff.

Learning Objective 1:

Enhance skills of needs assessments specific to patients in acute care settings to enhance program development and evaluations.

  • Interviews with stakeholders to discuss experiences and gain feedback to identify important need assessment components
  • Review of EPIC Disability Accommodations usage
    • There is no current data at NMH in regard to Disability Accommodation Domain
    • The office of Health Equity has placed a ticket to start receiving data focused on domain usage and types of accommodations being asked by patients in the outpatient setting.

Needs Assessment and Literature Review

Rojas Serrano_ Needs Assessment ReportDownload
RojasSerrano_Literature ReviewDownload

Learning Objective #2: Develop Skills in quality improvement to improve patient outcomes through team collaboration and mentorship. 

Attend Interdisciplinary Meetings Focused on Patient Care and Outcomes

Throughout this capstone experience, I asked my content expert mentor and education coordinator for examples of team collaboration focused on quality improvement. Immediately, they brought about different observation opportunities. Throughout my time at NM, I joined and observed different NM champion Network meetings. These meetings demonstrating interdisciplinary collaboration, collaboration between different units and departments for specific efforts.

  • Disability Chapter Monthly Meeting (April 16th, 2026)
    • Focused on mentorship opportunities in the community such as with CPS Schools, Go Baby Go, and volunteer opportunities
    • An NM colleague spoke on: “The Canary has found their voice, autistic identity and invisible disability”
  • Patient Safety Grand Rounds (NMH Patient Safety Program)- April 30th, 2026
    • “Work place violence: NM Philosophy”
      • Big implementation project focused on decreasing work place violence that involved multiple departments working together: Director of Workforce Health and Safety, VP Chief Wellness Executive, Psychiatry Department, and Security Department
      • Created trainings for staff focused on safety awareness in the Hospital Setting
      • Posted banners throughout NM focused on behavior and safety.
  • NM Medical Ethics Grand Rounds
    • “When Helping is Hard: The Ethics of Caring in Challenging Patient Encounters” (May 7, 2026)
      • Emphasis on reflecting as health care providers: “easy” does not mean low need, “difficult” situations often signal unmet needs, bias can alter care, perceived safety is not always actual safety, equity requires intention
    • Medical Ethics Committee Meeting (May 12, 2026)
      • Updates on ethical projects happening at NM and how ethics is involved in several implementation projects (ethics is important to take into consideration in all projects) as well as case study examples
        • e.g. Patient Care Policy: Medical Ethics Consultations
  • FAM Champion Meeting (May 6, 2026)
    • Meeting focused on quality improvement projects and topics that staff/units are asking for specific to training, education, fall prevention, safe mobility, and more. Unit nurse managers, education coordinators, care coordinators, and others get together in person
      • This specific meeting focused on implementation of AM-PAC on 3 units as an assessment for nurses to implement in their workflow focused on increasing patients mobility and safety during admission and in preparation for safe discharge planning. Unit nurse management shared how they motivate and ensure safe/appropriate implementation while keeping in mind the unit culture change occurring and ensuring all staff understand the purpose of the implementation change.
      • OT and PT shared on safe mobility, gait belt use, and fall prevention

DMAIC Process Training

My content expert mentor and OT education coordinator recommended to learn DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, as a model for quality improvement projects. It is the main model used at NMH. For this, I completed an Introductory Module followed by 4.5 hours of virtual learning where experts reviewed each step of DMAIC thoroughly and provided several resources. This approach is data driven, focused on identifying the root cause of a problem and implementing solutions.

Deliverables associated with the learning outcome

Learning Objective #3: Gain experience implementing a quality improvement intervention assessing outcomes of the project 

Learning outcome statement

Exemplars of learning activities (photos, videos, links, etc.)

Deliverables associated with the learning outcome

Learning Objective #4: Gain experience in conducting patient interviews as part of an IRB-approved qualitative research study 

Learning outcome statement

Exemplars of learning activities (photos, videos, links, etc.)

Deliverables associated with the learning outcome

  • Capstone Project Final Report
  • Dissemination
    • Evidence of your public dissemination
    • Link to impact summary video recording for future students