Rolling out bedside report

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I work on a med surg unit that specializes in the acute care of the elderly. Our management has tried 15 times in the past to roll out bedside reporting on our unit and has met resistance each and every time. They are implementing it again the end of this month. I have volunteered to help find ways to get more nurses involved and to hopefully give bedside report an honest shot. I would appreciate any tips from people who have had bedside reporting implemented on your units.

A couple of things we have thought of:

A script or a list of things that can be discussed in the room.

Having management and super users for a week spend shift change in the hallways to help with the process. offering encouragement and tips.

And lastly figuring a way out to honestly track if bedside report is being completed and the shift that has the highest percentage wins a pizza party or something similar.

Any ideas?

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Implementation of a full bedside report rarely gets traction because it's an unsafe and ineffective method for report. Nurse's generally will be resistant to anything that interferes with their ability to provide safe and effective care, I disagree the solution is to try and figure out how to overcome those values.

While the evidence clearly supports a bedside "safety check" as well as a review of the patient's plan of care with the patient as a component of report, the standards on safe handoff communication are well established and a full report at the bedside are not conducive to those standards.

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Bedside report is one of those things that sounds great and makes a lot of sense if you're not the one doing it.

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I work on a med surg unit that specializes in the acute care of the elderly. Our management has tried 15 times in the past to roll out bedside reporting on our unit and has met resistance each and every time. They are implementing it again the end of this month. I have volunteered to help find ways to get more nurses involved and to hopefully give bedside report an honest shot. I would appreciate any tips from people who have had bedside reporting implemented on your units.

A couple of things we have thought of:

A script or a list of things that can be discussed in the room.

Having management and super users for a week spend shift change in the hallways to help with the process. offering encouragement and tips.

And lastly figuring a way out to honestly track if bedside report is being completed and the shift that has the highest percentage wins a pizza party or something similar.

Any ideas?

Random thoughts:

I'd be interested to understand your take on this. Why do you feel it is a good idea? What is the overall goal of this initiative?

Why does the staff "resist?"

Has your team considered any scenarios where full bedside reporting might not work well? If so, have you communicated honestly with staff about it? Have you discussed as a staff what should be done in those instances?

FYI:

Scripting is out. It was never a good idea. It is tacky and a dishonest way to interact with people.

Ditto for pizza parties.

:)

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Bedside report is very difficult to get going effectively and consistently.

Nurses just flat out don't like doing it and to be quite frank, aren't going

to do it when their supervisor/manager isn't looking over their shoulder.

I think a bedside safety/environment check is more realistic. Go in,

introduce the other nurse, make sure patient is clean, IV in good

shape... ask if any pain... go over goals for the day.. that should be

enough. A full bedside report really seems unneccesary to me.

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Specializes in NICU.

Re: pizza party...don't. Just don't. These are not fifth-graders you're talking about here.

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I work on a med surg unit that specializes in the acute care of the elderly. Our management has tried 15 times in the past to roll out bedside reporting on our unit and has met resistance each and every time. They are implementing it again the end of this month. I have volunteered to help find ways to get more nurses involved and to hopefully give bedside report an honest shot. I would appreciate any tips from people who have had bedside reporting implemented on your units.

A couple of things we have thought of:

A script or a list of things that can be discussed in the room.

Having management and super users for a week spend shift change in the hallways to help with the process. offering encouragement and tips.

And lastly figuring a way out to honestly track if bedside report is being completed and the shift that has the highest percentage wins a pizza party or something similar.

Any ideas?

15 times? They must be slow learners. We DON'T like bedside report, and will find a way to get around it. It is a HIPAA violation, unless it is a private room, without visitors present.

Pizza parties are an insult to our intelligence. Do they throw pizza parties at a corporate meeting?

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Specializes in Hematology-oncology.
Bedside report is very difficult to get going effectively and consistently.

Nurses just flat out don't like doing it and to be quite frank, aren't going

to do it when their supervisor/manager isn't looking over their shoulder.

I think a bedside safety/environment check is more realistic. Go in,

introduce the other nurse, make sure patient is clean, IV in good

shape... ask if any pain... go over goals for the day.. that should be

enough. A full bedside report really seems unneccesary to me.

I agree with you NurseCard. Bedside safety/environment checks are essential. Full bedside report not so much. We check drip rates, volume remaining in IVF bags, tubes/drains, pain level, bed alarm (if indicated) as examples. You can also tell a lot about a patient's stability in those few minutes.

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Bedside report is great in theory. In reality, it takes longer because you give one up front, no-holds-barred report to the oncoming and a pretty, generalized report at the bedside. Then there's the HIPAA issue of others are in the room, patients who are sleeping, information that YOU know that the patient doesn't yet (cancer mets on radiology, you name it),etc. We are theoretically suppose to do bedside reports but we give report then go say hi and do a quick check of things.

Management standing over at shift change is a get-ya-downer...no matter how liked they are. Bedside report will get done while they are there and then it'll go back to what works after they're not.

And I agree with everyone else on the pizza party.

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
Re: pizza party...don't. Just don't. These are not fifth-graders you're talking about here.

My floor was all excited about the pizza party for handwashing compliance when I was just starting. Just saying it works for some.

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No scripts! Nurses are already jacks of all trades. Let's not add being actors/actresses to the list.

The absolute way to GET resistance is adding a script. It has never worked at my hospital.

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My floor was all excited about the pizza party for handwashing compliance when I was just starting. Just saying it works for some.

Handwashing also makes way more sense than these start-of-shift-performances.

It's possible they felt like actually celebrating. Completely different than promises of pizza for compromising what you think is best care.

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