Art Of Most Nurses ' Daily Reality Is Nursing Handover

Nursing is one of the most intimate health care professions. They are connected to their patients as soon as they are admitted into their care right through until they are discharged into someone else’s care. With this, nurses have a strict professional identity and scope of practice to prevent a nurse from over stepping their professional boundaries. A nurses’ duty of care does go beyond the average healthcare professional but still does not impair the

Within a health care setting communication is a necessity. This communication not only includes the need for professional communication but also the way in which information is shared to the patient and to other healthcare workers. Another important aspect of health care worker such as a nurse is the effectiveness off a handover. Within the video, Effective Communication in nursing these three aspects of communication (Professional communication, provision of information and handover) were seen and will be analysed further, within this essay. These will be analysed through the three aspects, the care of the patient, the image of the individual nurse and the health outcomes of the patient. All of these three aspects of communication are vitally important to the overall patient needs.

Standard 1.1 outlines that the registered nurse should access and analyse the best available evidence which includes research to ensure they provides safe and quality practice (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016). This was absent in scenario one as a result of a fast verbal medical handover Mary to Nicole. There was no guidance as to which patient was being discussed, and no time to write down all the important medical information required about her patients (Edith Cowan University, 2016). In scenario two Mary provides more guidance to Nicole about which patient she is talking about ensuring all the necessary information is received by Nicole (Edith Cowan University, 2016). Research has proven that handover is often difficult in the health care process, and often results in information being lost, distorted or misinterpreted. Verbal handover has also been described as an incomplete process when compared to information available in patient notes and records (Drach-Zahavy & Hadid, 2015). This is demonstrated in both scenarios with Nicole being given a fast handover with no guidance about where the information she is being given is relevant to. Whilst in scenario two Mary provides prompts and gives Nicole time to write down all the necessary information she requires (Edith Cowan University, 2016).

Recovery Nurse – The patient was transitioned from the operating room to the recovery room. As previously noted, there is no formal hand off process from one area to another within the ambulatory surgical center. The recovery nurse attempted to locate the mother in the waiting area. As noted above, there was no hand off of the mother’s cell phone number or alternate contact information.

I have decided to reflect upon the first time I did a nursing handover. In accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2004) Code of professional conduct, confidentiality shall be maintained and the patient’s name is changed to protect indentity.

The hand over process of communication between nurses to nurses is done with the intention of transferring essential information for safe, and patient centered care. Traditionally, this shift report has been done away from the patient’s bedside, at the nurse’s station, or other place like staff’s room. In addition, the shift report used to be delivered through audio recording of the patient’s information. These reporting mechanisms did not include face-to-face reporting of the patient information, nor involvement of patient. Therefore, information regarding the patient’s care was not shared with the patient, leaving them out of his/her own care plan. Recent studies and development of Patient Centered Care Philosophy have challenged this belief of giving a report away from the patient. Tan (2015) said, “Shift report must not only be restricted in nurse to nurse communication, but it must involve patients as the recipients of care” (p. 1). Incorporating the patient into the end of shift report is essential for providing patient centered care and patient satisfaction. Nurses at the St Jude Medical center in the acute in-patient rehabilitation unit are not exceptional. Most of the end of the shift report between nurses are still done away from the patient. Aim of this paper is to make a change in the work place, which is the process of giving end of shift report at the bedside incorporating patient and families in the acute in-patient rehabilitation unit at St Jude Medical

Bradley, S., & Mott, S. (2010). Handover: Faster and safer? Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 30(1), 23-32

Tobiano, G., Chaboyer, W. & Murray, A. (2012). Family Members’ Perceptions of the Nursing Bedside Handover. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 22, 192-200.

Nurses must never stop learning and always need to strive to discover better ways to provide care for their patients. One important factor in achieving this goal is involving patients in their own care. This can be established by doing a handoff report at the bedside between nurses. Bedside report has been studied in various settings, and its effectiveness has been proven in the literature. However, more evidence-based research on this topic is needed.

In the article, "Improving Patient Safety by Standardizing Handoff Communications" (Danis, 2007), the purpose of the study was to implement a standardized approach to handoff communication and to improve compliance in using a handoff communication form. The study was based on the lack of standardized communication as the root cause of issues surrounding how patients receive care and safety and addressed the JACHO 2006 National Patient Safety Goals requiring a standardized approach in handoff communications. The study found that implementing a handoff communication form increased communications about patients between staff of each department. It concluded that staffs were more aware of communication gaps and the difficulties in communicating in the complex health care environment. This study is important for bringing more awareness and solutions to the problem of interdepartmental communications to ensure that patients will continue to

Nursing handoffs is a type of report between two clinicians that are responsible for patients care and is an important part of transferring patient information (what, how, who and where) from one healthcare provider to another in clinical practice (Smith and Schub, 2014). Ineffective, inconsistent and incongruent communication during these handoffs continues to be a problem and a threat to patient safety. Effective handoffs are instrumental in providing for the successful quality of care that the patient is to receive (Abraham, Kannampallil & Patel, 2013). Medical errors, treatment delays, inappropriate treatment and/or care omissions can happen as a result of miscommunication during handoffs which could potentially lead to patient harm, longer stays, readmissions and/or increased costs.

The standard of bedside clinical handover is including patients and family in the process transfer patient’s critical information from the outgoing nurses to the next oncoming nurses at the end of shift exchange. Literature show patients play a vital role in handoff report. Patients provide input and verify inaccurate information to make a safe transition report (Lu et al. 2013). However, bedside clinical handover is not well established or persistent practice in many hospitals. Nurses provide handoff at the nurse’s station or in the hallways, often causing patients’ vital information to be lost, which contributes to medical malpractice, patients’ injuries or death (Lu et al. 2013). Using descriptive qualitative research to explore patients’ perceptive in bedside nursing handover, the study included thirty patients in three different hospital wards. The Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is used to analyze the data (Lu et al. 2013). Overall, results found nurses continue applying bedside clinical handover practice to enhance patient-family centered care. Patients felt

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the structures, processes, and perceptions of the outcomes of bedside handovers in nursing practice.

Communication is the process of gathering meaning from the world around us and using verbal and non-verbal messages to share this meaning with others. (Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond, 2005) More specifically, interpersonal communication can be defined as; “a distinctive, transactual form of human communication involving mutual influence, usually for the purpose of managing relation ships.” (Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond, 2005, p. 6) Interpersonal communication is extremely complex and encompasses many different themes and issues that affect many aspects of our daily lives. These

“From negotiating for a promotion to resolving a conflict with a spouse, good communication skills can greatly improve life, while weak communication skills can make everyday interactions frustrating and tense. Interpersonal communication encompasses a number of communication styles; there