Change of shift report

:) Report by tape can be very useful. Especially if you have nurses who are "Chatty Cathy" and can't shut up when you give report. I think report is best when it starts on time so the next shift can get started as soon as possible. If you do have a "Chatty Cathy" nurse when you give report the best thing to do is to go ahead and talk and give your report even though they are talking. If they choose to miss important information because they don't shut up then that's their problem.

if you have a work sheet available that all can use and follow in the same order it can make report go very fast.

We have bedside charts for each patient. Night shift makes out a new sheet each day that includes diagnosis, treatments, etc. etc. and the next shifts add what goes on to it. We still give a walking round verbal report, but it goes so much quicker than the old way.

I was asked by my manager to see if we could come up with a better solution to give and take report. That is the reason why I started this post. We also have bedside charts. 3rdshiftguy do you use kardexes? I am wanting to eliminate some of the steps. Most of us either copy the kardex and carry that around all day or make out a worksheet like I do. I'm thinking it is redundant to have nightshift make out a worksheet when the diagnosis, age, doctor, orders are on the kardex. Could you please tell me more and also.....I'm thinking walking rounds wouldn't work because all of the nightshift...usually 3 to 4 nurses want to listen to report on all the patients not just the ones they have. How do you do this? Could you please elaborate on how you do this? TIA

Also....Starbuck, that sounds like something that might work. I'm thinking if we all had a copy of the worksheet to follow when we give report. You could tell me how yours is set up? Thanks. I appreciate all these ideas.

We have a worksheet. It is divided into columns (set up on MS Excel). We do taped report. We also have Kardexes.

It is set up like this:

Room #, Name, Age, Doc, Code Status, Dx, diet, I/O, V/S freq?, tele?, IVF & rate or INT?, activity, labs due, then space for notes.

The room number, name, age, doc and diagnosis are already filled in, all the rest of the spaces are blank to be filled in.

We tape report and I hate it! If you want to clarify something or ask a question, you then have to go hunt down that nurse to do so. Takes more time in my opinion.

i work in a 32 bed surgical ward. we tape our report. all nurses on next shift have a patient list with name, age, dr, how many days post op, operation, diet, then blank space to fill in whatever we want to take from the tape ie. when meds last given, next due, results, allergies, mobility etc.

after report we divide the patients between us and if a nurse wants to add anything not already on tape she/he will come in and tell us or catch up with us after report.

we find it works better than a verbal handover as there seem to be more interuptions and it takes longer.

On the floors at the hosptial that I work in, they use a phone system. Each person has their own code to get it...report is taped...the RN only gets report on the patients that they have...

Each patient also has a Kardex that can be referred to for orders, plan of care, etc...Kardex is updated when new orders are posted...

We tape report and also have kardexs. Between the two you get a lot of information about the pt. But some nurses tape too early and you don't know about what happened after they tape. I have walked into a room and found blood hanging that was no where in the report. I had to verify it by checking the pt chart for a dr order. Because the nurse who gave report had already left by the time I got out of report.