Report: Strategies for Improving Nurse Shift Hand-off Communication

This report delves into the critical importance of effective shift hand-off communication among nurses to ensure patient safety and high-quality care. It highlights the potential risks associated with poor communication, such as medication errors, delayed treatment, and decreased patient satisfaction. The report reviews various shift handover formats, including the Introduction, Patient, Assessment, Situation, Safety, Background, Plan, Timing, Ownership, and Next steps (IPASBTON). It also discusses the application of frameworks like SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) and other structured approaches (5Ps) to standardize information exchange. The analysis emphasizes the need for clear, concise, and consistent communication to minimize errors and improve the overall quality of care in healthcare settings. The report references several studies that support the correlation between effective communication during shift handovers and improved patient outcomes, ultimately advocating for the implementation of standardized communication protocols to enhance inter-shift information transfer across different hospital units.

Running head: IMPROVING SHIFT HAND-OFF COMMUNICATION OF NURSES
Improving Shift Hand-off communication of nurses
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IMPROVING SHIFT HAND-OFF COMMUNICATION OF NURSES
The delivery of the safe and proper form of healthcare is of extreme importance to the
health of the patients. However, it has been seen that there are a wide range of the issues
regarding the safety that has been challenging the healthcare delivery and therefore many of the
personal and organizational strategies are been developed for promoting the safety of the patients
(Bowersox, 2016).
The shift handover is a very common form of tradition among the nurses. However, the
standards and the effective way of handover are to process the information about the skills for
the communication that are not at all taught in a formal manner during the education for nursing.
Nevertheless, the nurse tends to learn such things during their daily form of practice and
therefore gains a lot of experience (Serksnys Nanchal & Fletcher, 2017). The primary form of
goals that are needed for the shift handover is to have a proper communication with the patient
and to provide a safe and high quality form of care. However, the poor information that exists in
the communication during the non-standard and the ineffective form of the handover of shifts
can eventually endanger the safety of the patients (Foster-Hunt et al., 2015).
There are evidences that show that there are ineffective form of handover of the shifts that can
eventually increase the risk of the medication error and the sentinel form of the events that tends
to delay in the course of the treatment that decreases the satisfaction of the patients and have a
prolonged form of stay at the hospital. It has been found, in a case of pregnant woman the results
have shown a significant form of correlation that exists between the number of shift handovers
and the unplanned form of the caesarean deliveries. It was later found out that the quality of the
report of shift change can lead to the delay in the care of nursing by two to three hours (Serksnys
Nanchal & Fletcher, 2017).

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IMPROVING SHIFT HAND-OFF COMMUNICATION OF NURSES
On the other hand, it has been reported that the ineffective form of the intra and the inter shifts
that are verbal and written communications that are responsible for creating the errors in the
healthcare sectors. However, an effective form of communication is vital for the safe and high
quality of the delivery (Reinbeck & Fitzsimons, 2013). The effectual form of communication is
very important for the standardization of the information in the process of communication that
persists in the process of the health care system that are needed as referred to be the second
national level of the goal and the safety. These forms of goals are emphasized on the
communication that remains up to date for the credible form of information that can minimally
interrupt the process of the shift handover.
Therefore for achieving this form of goal, there are numerous rates of the shift handover formats
that include, Introduction, Patient, Assessment, Situation, Safety, and Background of the illness,
the plan of action, timing, ownership and the Next line of the treatment. It also includes the
Situation, History, Assessment, Recommendations and the Questions (Reinbeck & Fitzsimons,
2013). These forms of reports also include the assessment according to the 5Ps that includes the
Patients, Precautions, Plans, Problems and purpose. It also includes the SBAR report that
includes the Situation of the patients, their background, the assessments and the
recommendations. By maintaining the above-mentioned formats there are high chances that there
is a possibility to improve the quality of the inter shift information for having a communication
in the different units of hospitals that are there worldwide (Reinbeck & Fitzsimons, 2013).

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IMPROVING SHIFT HAND-OFF COMMUNICATION OF NURSES
References
Bowersox, M. (2016). A Nurse's Perception of Hand-Off Communication Before and After
Utilization of the I-5 Verification of Information Tool (Doctoral dissertation, Walden
University).
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.
Reinbeck, D. M., & Fitzsimons, V. (2013). Improving the patient experience through bedside
shift report. Nursing management, 44(2), 16-17.
Serksnys, D., Nanchal, R., & Fletcher, K. E. (2017). Opportunities for interprofessional input
into nurse and physician hand-off communication. Journal of critical care, 38, 47-51.