Time in Nurse Handover??

[summerscoopy26]

Good day Med-Surg nurses,

I just want to get a feel about how long it takes for nurse handovers at your workplace? Also, how are your schedules done in order to make time for nurse handover. Thanks for all the info...

[mamiekay]

Our shifts overlap by 30 minutes so there's time for report, e.g. night shift ends at 7:30 am, day shift starts at 7:00 am. We do written sign-outs online and then do a verbal hand-over when the next shift is ready. That generally takes 5-15 minutes, depending on how many patients the oncoming RN is taking & their acuity levels. We only take report on our own assignments and it's face-to-face. It works well.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

Ours sucks and it needs to change. OMG, the nurses have 4-5 pt's and it takes them well over a half an hour. The oncoming shift starts at 1800 and they get out of report at 1830-1845. It's ridiculous.

Thankfully we are going to be moving to walking rounds. That will change this process and make it quicker and smoother.

[Sunnysidegirl]

Our shifts overlap as well by 1/2 an hour.I was told we need to chart by exception using SBAR and hand off's should be no longer that 2 minutes!

Yet there are those times when nurses will give extraneous info that eats up precious time.I am probably guilty of it too because I like to give very thorough reports.

[noyesno, MSN, APRN, NP]

Omg, ours take about 45 minutes or longer. Drives me crazy. Only 30 minutes is allotted for report so I always get out late. We usually have 6 patients and 9 times out of 10 you have to give report to 3 or 4 different nurses. So much time is wasted waiting to give report because the nurse you are trying to give report on is busy with someone else.

Another annoyance, report never starts on time. Night shift always comes in late around 23:10 and day shift is never ready to give report at 15:00.

[krista312]

we also have the 1/2 hour overlapping shifts, we also give a verbal report, i am a float so some floors do walking or bedside report while others just do a quick hand off. everything is computerized as are most places so we also read the previous shifts assessment and notes for the past 24 hours this gives a good picture of the patient and makes report go quicker. i like being able to read about my patient because i can be as thoughrough as i like and i only need to get quick updates from the off going nurse. when i am the off going nurse i know what is in my note and assessment and in verbal report i only touch of the most important things i wish to stress, and plan for the day,