kardex vs sbar

Nurses General Nursing

Published

What do you use to give change of shift report and what do you find more effective?

Specializes in ICU, ER, EP,.

Depends upon the type of nursing. In the ICU, we do a full body system SBAR, with labs, the almighty wish list from the doc, family issues and general patient needs... like social work.

A small ICU I've just worked at prints a kardex for the patients and both nurses review at the same time (computerized charting), it's redundant, but that's what they do.

In the ER where I work, computerized charting completely, we pull up each patient and go through a SBAR format, while looking at what orders need to be completed.

My issue with the kardex, is that the chart is generally not referenced and you only get a he said/ she said, and I miss orders that are pending until midnight chart checks and it is dangerous.

If the kardex is used with a review of the paper chart and signed off in a shift change than I think this works just fine.

I have little to no floor or nursing home experience so take my points with a grain of salt if the ICU/step down/ER doesn't apply to your situation, you may have other methods that work best and I respect that.

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