Guest1144556

Having spent a considerable amount of time doing researching patient handoffs and the best practices associated with it, the research shows that the quality of patient handoffs is higher when the handoffs are performed at the bedside and when the format is standardized (sbar, isbar, ipass, shape, etc). I remember reading an article stating something along the lines of that up to 80% of communication-based medical errors are a result of non-standardized handoffs. Whether we realize it or not, patient handoffs are a big safety issue that several regulatory agencies have tried addressing for almost 2 decades now. The difficulty is getting everyone on board - using the same standardized system (sbar, ipass, etc) and doing the handoff at the bedside. It becomes frustrating when there isn't a united consensus and everyone just kinda does their own thing. I totally get it can be annoying doing the handoff at bedside as many have already mentioned, but sometimes the right thing to do can be annoying...

This is the same way my hospital operates too. The ED nurse writes a progress note (using a template) in SBAR format and includes their phone number at the end of the note for the floor nurse to call if they have any questions. And the floor nurse has 15 minutes, upon being notified by the manager, to review the note, patient's chart and any other relevant information and then call bed control to confirm that the room is ready for the patient to be admitted into. Also while reviewing the patient's chart, if the floor nurse spots any discrepancy, e.g., the patient would be better suited to a different department based on several factors (diagnosis, symptoms, level of care needed etc), the manager is to be then made aware. In a perfect world this method would work perfectly however hospitals are not perfect sometimes things do get missed - think missed orders, missed labs, missed meds etc. For example the ED nurse might release all the orders and acknowledge them but not complete them all. And because this information might not have been communicated to the floor nurse, one of those orders could be missed unintentionally. The point is, in nursing school we were a taught to rely on evidence based research. That is the basis of our practice. The latest evidence based research states that a significant amount of errors take place due to poor communication or lack of communication during the nursing hand-off.

One of the benefits of SBAR is that it has been shown to increase both patient satisfaction and nurse satisfaction. Satisfaction can be measured through surveys. So you can create and pre SBAR survey and post SBAR survey in order to measure the effictiveness of the updated SBAR at your work.

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