University Report: Bedside Shift Report in Healthcare (Nursing)

This report examines the practice of bedside shift reports in healthcare, focusing on the communication between healthcare providers during shift changes. It begins with a literature review, exploring the concept and its significance. The report then delves into interventions aimed at improving patient care, highlighting the importance of patient and family involvement. It outlines specific goals, such as ensuring safe handoffs and promoting teamwork, while also addressing potential problems like miscommunication and lack of understanding of medical terminology. The significance of bedside shift reports, including patient safety and privacy, is also discussed. The report concludes with implementation strategies, particularly in pediatric critical care units, emphasizing patient-centered care and effective communication to enhance patient outcomes and satisfaction. The report references several studies that support the importance of effective bedside shift reports.

Running head: BEDSIDE SHIFT REPORT
BEDSIDE SHIFT REPORT
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BEDSIDE SHIFT REPORT
Table of Contents
Literature review........................................................................................................................2
Interventions...............................................................................................................................2
Goals..........................................................................................................................................3
Problems.....................................................................................................................................4
Significance................................................................................................................................4
Implementation..........................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................6

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‘Bedside shift report’ can be stated as the communication between two healthcare
providers when the shift ends (Ferguson & Howell, 2015). This requires a good
communication between them as these involves the exchange of the vital information relating
to the various requirements of the patients. These informations are provided by the off-going
care provider to the on-coming ones. It is also an important means of communication both
between the patients with their families and the care providers of the health care.
Literature review
The bedside shift report involves many problems. These problems may involve the
miscommunications among the care givers while passing on the informations. The nurses
sometimes have to give a prolonged answer to the patient’s family which interferes with the
reporting time, the patients often are not in the condition to interact with the care givers or the
patient’s family is unable to understand the various technical terms used by the professionals
and become anxious of their patient.
McMurray carried out a study in a hospital that involves a patient’s participation in
bedside shift reports. They studied that the patients are grateful in involving them in their care
and that it is a means to correct the shortcomings. The patients also appreciated the
relationship set up with the nurses through this approach.
Interventions
The bedside shift report helps to improve the care provided to the patient and helps to
improve the satisfaction of both the nurses and the patients. The nurses should be trained to
work in a patient family centered manner and readily involve the patient and let them know
their reports and the care plans in which they are into (Peters, & ten Cate, 2014). This
approach becomes a very important way of improving the patient care in a health care. They

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should also involve the patient’s family in the care plan and let them aware of the bedside
shift report.
The care providers should increase their communication but decrease the time
required for reporting. The over shift time should also be decreased in order to provide a
good care to the patient, thus time management proves to be important to them. The
teamwork would made them to work more efficiently as they all will be aware of the patient’s
condition and the medications that is prescribed for him.
Goals
The goal of the telemetry unit is to change the nursing practices. The telemetry unit
also focuses in the correction of the inaccuracies, enabling the telemetry unit nurses to
contribute in gathering the information, encourage them to ask questions and learn the plans
associated with the care of the patient.
The first goal in ‘bedside shift report’ is the ensuring of safe handoff to the oncoming
nurse. This requires a good communication between them and the oncoming nurse must be
careful enough to know the required information as well as conveying the report to the family
member (Gregory et al., 2014). Their goal is to carry out teamwork among themselves and
developing trust of the patient and as a result the patients are reassured to know that the
nurses are well informed of his condition.
The next goal is that the shift changes must take place beside the bed of the patient.
This approach would prevent the patient from being alone in his bed during the shift change
reports (Waggoner, 2017). The patient is also included in this shift change reports and is
informed about his treatment planning by being a part of them. They can also approach a
patient preferred care with this.

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The third one is that the nurses should keep the patient’s family aware of the various
plans and the treatments of the patient by encouraging the patient and their family to
participate in their treatment planning. They also should encourage them to enquiry and allow
them to correct if there are any fallaciousness in the bedside shift. The primary goal is to
inform both the patient and the family members of the care and the treatment throughout his
stay in the healthcare.
Problems
There are problems faced in a bedside shift report. These problems may be
summarized as follows. The passing over of the accurate information without losing and
enabling an easy access of the information who were not present may be interrupted. The
associated staff may be unaware and lack the knowledge of the ways to involve the patient
and the role of the care givers and the family members of the patient. They may also lack the
knowledge of maintaining the privacy of the patient (Jeffs et al., 2014). A major problem may
arise when the patient’s family failed to understand the different professional terminology
that the professionals often use in order to communicate with them. The nurses in the
telemetry unit often feel uncomfortable at the patient’s presence, are not confident the
progress of the report may be delayed and lengthened by the questions of the patient. The
telemetry unit thus proves to be ineffective. The telemetric unit identifies barriers that are
uncomprehensive.
Significance
Debra Kerr studied the significance in the limitations and observed that the inefficient
handover of the information leads to fateful incidents and puts the patients to risk. He carried
out several interviews with the patients and data was collected. He observed that it was

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important to maintain the privacy during the handover and the patients are reassured about
the care of given by the nurses.
Implementation
The targeted group is the paediatric critical care unit. The shift change report does not
normally take place at the side of the bed in this case. The patient safely is usually promoted
by the nurses when they share important informations about the patient and the process of the
care that are taking (Foster-Hunt et al., 2015). The care providers are given the lesson relating
to the care centering the patient’s family and this approach helps in promoting a greater
communication, enhancing the safety of the patient, an efficient shift of the reports. These
units require a telemetry which would serve to monitor the patient’s condition continuously.
This also helps in engaging the patient’s family and the patient himself and the satisfaction of
both the patient’s family, the care providers and the professionals associated with the
healthcare. The nurses should be extremely attentive in passing on the information to one
another and the care that the patients seeks from them as the patients in this unit are often
unable to response and unable to interact either with the care givers or with their family.

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References
Ferguson, T. D., & Howell, T. L. (2015). Bedside Reporting. Nursing Clinics, 50(4), 735-
747.
Foster-Hunt, T., Parush, A., Ellis, J., Thomas, M., & Rashotte, J. (2015). Information
structure and organisation in change of shift reports: An observational study of
nursing hand-offs in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Intensive and Critical Care
Nursing, 31(3), 155-164.
Gregory, S., Tan, D., Tilrico, M., Edwardson, N., & Gamm, L. (2014). Bedside shift reports:
what does the evidence say?. Journal of Nursing Administration, 44(10), 541-545.
Jeffs, L., Beswick, S., Acott, A., Simpson, E., Cardoso, R., Campbell, H., & Irwin, T. (2014).
Patients' views on bedside nursing handover: creating a space to connect. Journal of
nursing care quality, 29(2), 149-154.
Peters, M., & ten Cate, O. (2014). Bedside teaching in medical education: a literature
review. Perspectives on medical education, 3(2), 76-88.
Waggoner, A. (2017). Improving the Quality of Bedside Shift Report Behavior:
Implementing a Standardized Bedside Report Tool on the Medical-Surgical Floor at
Woodland Healthcare.