My facility recently implemented bedside reporting. Sensitive information is given away from the patient. Once in the patient room, the report is more of a discussion of the plan of care. While I like this part, there are features I do not like and do not feel are safe.
When a patient is admitted, an 8 1/2 by 11 inch report sheet (made of card stock) is completed by the admitting nurse. This report sheet is passed from shift to shift until the patient is discharged so the report is no longer my own.
1. Nurses no longer are writing their own report and are reading the hand written report from another nurse. We are discouraged from using our old single piece of paper report sheet.
2. Report is written in erasable ink. Anything needing updating is erased and re-written using the same sheet.
3. Since we have a 6 patient to one nurse ratio, we also have a report card from every patient which means you either carry a clipboard (which a lot of nurses don't like to do) or leave at the nurses station. They are too thick to carry in your pocket.
4. I feel things get missed or aren't updated because everyone is too busy.
5. How much can you really remember from your 30 minute report on 6 patients? In nursing school if you went to a lecture, you wrote things down. You would never listen to something (for say 30 minutes) and not write something.
