Nursing handoff is a process of exchanging vital patient information between nurses in an effort to ensure safe continuity of care. When health care workers fail to communicate comprehensive, consistent information, ineffective communication methods create opportunities for mistakes (Tacchini-Jacquier et al., 2020). I’ve seen an issue with insufficient hand-off communication in nursing. In the healthcare field, effective communication is critical. When passing a patient from one caregiver to another, effective communication is required to ensure that vital information is shared. I frequently receive handoffs from the OR nurse and anesthesiologist while working in the recovery room. I regularly receive incomplete and brief handoffs. When it comes to exchanging responsibility for a patient’s care, details like whether the patient is diabetic or has dementia are critical. When information is inaccurate or missing, the patient’s safety is jeopardized.
Ineffective handoffs should be researched since successful communicated handoffs is needed to maintain continuity of care and patient safety. Nurses work in environments where maintaining patient safety necessitates continual attention. Nurses employ surveillance to gather, analyze, and synthesize a large quantity of information during a patient interaction (Rhudy et al., 2019). Interruptions in communication and activities that prevent a nurse from doing a critical task cause a shift in concentration, which can result in errors and adverse outcomes. As a result, when communication is disrupted during a handoff, it has an influence on patient safety and care quality. To minimize medical errors and threats to patient safety, it is critical to understand the challenges surrounding handoff communication and determining risk strategies. Reduced interruptions, standardized handoff communication, and effective handoff communication training are all factors that can contribute to good handoff communication. The SBAR instrument is used in hospitals (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation). The SBAR is a valuable communication tool; however, it must be taught to all employees so that communication is clear, and it must be embraced as a standardized communication style, which requires a willingness to change.
Rhudy, L. M., Johnson, M. R., Krecke, C. A., Keigley, D. S., Schnell, S. J., Maxson, P. M., McGill, S. M., & Warfield, K. T. (2019). Change-of-shift nursing handoff interruptions: Implications for evidence-based practice. Worldviews on Evidence -Based Nursing, 16(5), 362–370. https://doi.org/10.1111/wvn.12390
Tacchini-Jacquier, N., Hertzog, H., Ambord, K., Urben, P., Turini, P., & Verloo, H. (2020). An evidence-based, nursing handover standard for a multisite public hospital in Switzerland: Web-based, modified Delphi study. JMIR Nursing, 3(1), e17876. https://doi.org/10.2196/17876
Apr 10, 2022, 6:58 PM
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