nursing student needs help!

[student_nurse24]

Ok, I am suppose to write a paper on a management issue. I got assigned "problems with shift report" HARD!!

Can any nurses tell me any problems they are having with giving or taking shift report? Can you tell me some ideas for how you think shift report would be better? Like, if you could change things how would you?

I need to state why there is a problem and how I would fix it....

PLEASE HELP!

[nyteshade, BSN]

Hey there,

If you search old posts around here, I'm pretty sure you will run into nurse's many gripes with shift change. My own problems have been:

1. Oncoming nurse is late

2. Offgoing nurse has poor time management and running around during report time.

3. Oncoming nurse doesn't want my "hard" assignment and pouts around the unit wasting time.

That's my two cents.

[mammac5]

As a student who is getting report on patients and listening to reports others are getting, a lot of what's going on is not that helpful.

We're being taught to give a tight report of the pertinent facts (VS, any abnormals noted on assessment, tests/procedures to be done during the shift, brief HPI, and any pertinent social history, for example) but that's not what we're hearing. We're hearing a lot of opinions about family members of the patient, how the nurse disagrees with what the doc is doing/ordering, gossip about other staff members, etc.

Again, coming from the perspective of a student so take it for what it's worth.