Starting bedside report on Mother Baby unit

[kms6417]

We will be starting bedside report (again) soon on our Mother Baby unit. Presently, we give report at the nurses station and each nurse transcribes this information onto their "own" report worksheet. This sheet is a personalized fill in the blank that each nurse carries with them throughout their shift. Soon they want a written kardex type sheet to be started by the unit secretary and filled and recopied to be used as a bedside handoff. Management no longer wants to see nurses giving report at the nurses station and then going into the room to introduce the new nurse.

How do other Mother Baby units handle bedside report?

Every nurse organizes themself differently. No one uses the same report worksheet and many will now be recopying to their own sheet after report. How do you handle transfer of sensitive information? Some of our patients don't want their significant other to know they have a history of HSV or a previous pregnancy. Patients are sleeping frequently after being up breast feeding an infant all day or night and may not want this report to awaken them.

Our unit has tried this before and it has not worked. I would appreciate any input from other Mother Baby units on how bedside report is handled on your floor. Thanks!

[boquiabierta]

We are going through something very similar on our floor! The only difference is we don't have a standardized report sheet anymore; they actually did away with that months ago and people were quite displeased. They want us to be 100% paper-free; of course, what this means in practice is everyone just uses their own sheet, like we did before in addition to the sheet that got passed from nurse to nurse.

Anyway, bedside reporting is being pushed on us and we've brought up all the issues you have and more. Doesn't matter; management thinks we need to do bedside reporting and no reasonable argument against it will change their minds. Apparently we are supposed to wake up exhausted moms 2-3x/day and that will be good for them somehow.

In reality, people are pretty much still doing report at the nurses' station unless management is around. We always practiced a bedside component to our handoff where both nurses would go into the room together after report. In my opinion this is sufficient, and when a patient is sleeping we LET THEM SLEEP! We also do not review sensitive information in front of the patient. God, even non-sensitive information like GBS status can be easily misinterpreted by significant others.

I think it'll fade away after a while like it always does. Good luck!

[kms6417]

Thanks so much for your response. I have been trying to be a "team player" and really giving it a try. Report does go a little faster with everyone using the same sheet. My own report worksheet kept me organized in MY way, so this new one is taking a lot of getting used to. Basically it's just standing at the patient's wallaroo (pull down outside the room that mom and baby charts are kept in) and exchange the same info we used to do while resting our weary legs from running all day when we gave report at the desk in the sitting position. We then go in and introduce the new nurse to the patient. It's a show for management that I am forced to act in.

[haunani, BSN, RN]

Another M/B nurse here. We currently do bedside reporting and have a standard Kardex-type sheet that gets passed along from nurse to nurse. For the bedside reporting, the sensitive information is said outside of the room for the reasons you mentioned, then the basic info is said in the room, if mom is awake. We do not wake moms! For the report sheets, it makes sure everyone gets the same information on the patients, but we all still do our own little "cheat sheets" for ourselves. Some people just make copies of the Kardex, some just rewrite the info themselves.

[quazar]

For the bedside reporting, the sensitive information is said outside of the room for the reasons you mentioned, then the basic info is said in the room, if mom is awake.

This is exactly how it is handled in my hospital as well. Bedside reporting feels awkward and uncomfortable at first, and it is, but once you get used to it, it's fine. The sensitive information is kept for private report between RNs if there is family in the room, or if it's something like the patient is super difficult, etc., we save that for RN to RN report.