Bedside Shift Reporting: A Case Study

Nursing theorist, Imogene King’s theory of goal attainment can be applied to bedside reporting. One major concept of King’s theory listed by McEwen & Wills (2011) is nursing; a process of action, reaction, and interaction whereby nurse and client share information about their perceptions in the nursing situation. The nurse and client share specific goals, problems, and concerns and explore means to achieve a goal (p. 163). When mutual goals have been identified, means have been explored, and nurse and client agree on means to achieve goals, transactions will be made, and goals achieved (Lane-Tillerson, 2007). Once the patient’s goal(s) are achieved then

Safety and satisfaction are two incredibly important aspects that have become the focus of many nursing related studies. Actions to raise patient satisfaction and measures to increase patient safety have continuously been investigated and tested. Recently, with the help of evidence-based research, hospitals have begun to utilize shift reporting at the bedside and assessing patients’ needs every hour in a means to boost patient safety and satisfaction. It is my belief that with consistent implementation of bedside shift report and structured hourly rounding, nurses are able to maximize the safety of patients and their satisfaction with our care.

Recognizing that patient participation is vital to their personal medical care, healthcare organizations are conducting nursing staff shift reports at the bedside in the patient’s presence. Bedside reports aim to avoid communication failures by exchanging real-time information at shift change. Bedside reporting is a new alternative to the customary change of shift report that traditionally takes place in a unit hallway or at the nurse’s station. This provides an opportunity for questions before valuable information is lost or overlooked. In this literature review of bedside shift reporting, three studies were compared in order to show that a patient’s perspective is valued as they can see and hear from the team of professionals who are providing their care. Bedside shift report also improves the nurses’ understanding of the patient’s condition as the nurse is able to visualize the patient and share relevant information.

“Historically, nurses have provided patient information to the oncoming nursing staff to ensure the continuity of care (Chaboyer et al., 2009)” (Maxson, Derby, Wrobleski, & Foss, 2012, p.140). In that era of nursing, shift report also consisted of audio tapes, written reports, and the nurse in charge informing the oncoming nursing staff of their patient assignments. Shift report has

Communication has improved along with these policy changes. Electronic health records are a means of reaching a lot of people in minimal time. Bedside shift reporting gives nurses and patients an opportunity to discuss and alter the care plan. Nurse-patient communication is now more important than ever.

Traditionally, nurses debrief other nurses during a shift change in the hospital setting at either the nurses’ station or in a conference room. They may or may not communicate with doctors and other hospital staff using these same techniques. Some hospitals have switched to discussing the patient for shift changes purposes at the patient’s bedside, as part of a refocused patient-centered care model developed to reduce errors and to keep patients better informed in the process. The benefits of utilizing a bedside nurse patient handoff reporting process within the hospital setting greatly outweigh any possible risk or inconvenience when compared with alternative or traditional options.

End of shift reports in this unit are often taken place at the central nursing station, at nurses’ lunch room, or at the medicine room. Although JCAHO has defined bedside shift report as one of the strategies to encroach patient satisfaction (Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety, 2013), many nurses are still reluctant to this methods for many reasons. It seems as the cynicism of the implementation is still exceedingly high. Many argue that the implementation is non-beneficial and outweigh the cost. These include the longer time they spend in the report, the unavailability of the patient (e.g. confused, comatose patient), the confidentiality and privacy (e.g. visitors in the room), nervousness in front of the

The group topic undergoing research involves the comparison between bedside reports and handoffs and how it affects patient care and involvement. The focus of this paper is to research qualitative and quantitative assessment articles that reflects on bedside reporting and how it affects patient outcome and safety. Efficient and effective communication is required in transferring information from one health care professional to another in regards to the patient’s plan of care. While studies of bedside reporting has shown certain benefits towards the nursing staff and patients, there are also disadvantages that nurses and patients have reported such as time management, anxiety, and/or insecurities. According to “Patient participation in bedside reporting on surgical wards”, patients had positive opinions about bedside reporting and recognized the safety characteristics that was applied

The research found in many of the 10 articles adequately explains and supports the need for a change in communication of nurse’s who provide care for patients. All of the articles found during my research state that communication is an issue and many of the articles researched used bedside reporting as the solution and documented the findings. One research article reported nurse satisfaction increasing from 37% to 78% after bedside implementation (Evan, Grunawalt, McClish, Wood, & Friese, 2012). Verifying that the use of bedside report is crucial to patient handoff with regards to nurse communication. There are many research article that conclude that bedside reporting is a quicker more efficient way of handing off care of the patient

Effective communication is critical during shift to shift report to ensure patients are receiving the highest quality care and safety (Wakefield, Ragan, Brandt, & Tregnago, 2012). There has been increasing interest in bringing shift to shift report back to the bedside to include the patient. Evidence supports bedside shift report (BSR) improves patient satisfaction, elevates accountability and increases overall communication amongst the caregivers. For years shift to shift report has taken place outside and away from the patient room leaving patients alone and unattended for long periods of time. “Research has shown that sentinel events are more likely to occur during this “alone” time" (Ofori-Atta, Binienda, & Chalupka, 2015).

The purpose of this BSR project is to assess the nurse’s performance during their handoff report and develop strategic that can improve a patient quality of care, safety and satisfaction. Communication plays such an important role between nurses and patients to emphasize that an “Effective workforce planning and policy making require better data collection and an improved information infrastructure (IOM, 2011)

Handoff communication between health care employees entering and exiting their shifts is a daily occurrence for every patient in the hospital. This is the verbal and sometimes written report of the patient 's diagnosis including their current hospitalized illness along with their potentially extensive medication list and all pertinent events throughout the shift. Miscommunication can occur easily between incoming and outgoing employees. This breakdown in information delivery may be detrimental to patient outcomes potentially harming the patient or delaying the healing process. Defining certain components of an effective patient report, showcasing possible negative outcomes of an ineffective hand off, and ways that this process might be improved may bring light to this issue and curb possible incidences of vital information slipping through the cracks. This may be an area where facilities see much better patient results through education, interdepartmental communication, and policy change.

Thank you for your great presentation. I gained a lot of information from the power point and having clear understanding the importance of having a verbal handoff. When I worked as clinical staff nurse at a 26 beds ICU. Similar changes occurred, and the goal of the change was to improve the safety and the outcome of the patient. At the same time, increase patient and family members’ satification of the nursing care.

Bedside shift reports or as some call them patient handoffs, Nursing hand offs or Report are now common among hospital and nursing talking about patient between shift change (Ofori-Atta, J. 2015). This type of report was not always done at the bedside because of fears that patients were thought to have about medical care. According to Ofori-Atta, J. (2015), preventive medicine and autonomy have been encouraged over the past several years which leads us to allowing the patient to be involved in care and bedside shift reports. It is also helps nursing to identify safety issues when changing shifts.

“A quantitative assessment of patient and nurse outcomes of bedside nursing report implementation” is a quasi-experimental study by Kari San-Jecklin and Jay Sherman. The purpose of this study was to use pre and post implementation of surveys to monitor not only patient’s viewpoint of bedside reporting correlated to care received, but nurses opinions as well (2854). Strengths of this article includes the surveys taken. The patients’ surveys had 17 questions pertaining to nurses’ actions, education, respectfulness, and communication. Similar to the patients’ surveys, there were seventeen items on the nursing survey. Although, the nursing survey included questions regarding bedside reporting. Questions were used to establish the advantages and