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.
Hey I like Pizza. I'm not doing bedside report though & neither is most of the nurses I work with. They will say "what a great idea" and fudge the paperwork if necessary but doing it is another story. Seriously, nurses aren't going to do that which doesn't make sense to them for pizza
In response to the pizza: If I want pizza, I'll buy it myself. The problem with pizza/food incentives is there are several shifts. By the time nights rolls around at 11, all we get is half eaten leftovers. They are vultures in my unit. Some even take HOME slices for their baby birds for dinner. Lol.
If I'm REALLY lucky they'll leave the empty pizza boxes (maybe a bitten crust inside) and party remnants for me to clean up too.
I worked in a place where we were supposed to do bedside report. We even had threats of being reported and written up if we were caught not doing bedside report- they had people dressed like visitors wandering around units at shift change at times. That just pissed us off and is NOT a nice work environment. We started standing in the doorway of the patient's room, which really didn't add anything to report but it took more time and sometimes caused other problems. We could have just as easily found a quiet spot on the unit to give report then gone and done all the safety checks, introduce the next shift, etc.
Is it any wonder I don't work there anymore? (This was just one of many things)
It is more conducive to sit and relax to get report. Probably the only time we can sit during the shift. Quick rounds to make sure everyone is breathing. Bedside report takes more time. We already get out late. When research is done you can't taje what works on one unit and apply to another totally different units. Try giving bedside report on 6 patients.
We do bedside report on my med surg unit. We each have 6 patients and are sometimes receiving report from 4-6 offgoing nurses depending on how the schedule falls (if you work 2 or more shifts in a row you get your same patients back to help with continuity.) Report mainly consists of why they're here, IV info, code status, relevant vitals, and plan of care. If there is something that patient doesn't know about or that we need to warn oncoming shift about we do that part in the hallway.
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SpankedInPittsburgh, DNP, RN
1,847 Posts
Hey I like Pizza. I'm not doing bedside report though & neither is most of the nurses I work with. They will say "what a great idea" and fudge the paperwork if necessary but doing it is another story. Seriously, nurses aren't going to do that which doesn't make sense to them for pizza