Patient Care Handoffs
Brooke Grider
Indiana University Kokomo School of Nursing
Patient Care Handoffs
Scope of the Problem
When working in health care there are many responsibilities that need to occur to ensure patients’ health, safety, and happiness. Many of these obligations include informing the patients, making them feel important, and taking precautions when regarding their safety. One major area of importance that has lead to a multitude of patient accidents and problems is what is called patient care handoffs. Patient care handoffs are defined as when “providers exchange information and transfer responsibility for and control over a patient at shift change or when moving the patient from one service or institution to another” …show more content…
Problems arise before even being a full time health care worker. The majority of medical schools do not take time to teach their students the proper ways to hand off their patients (Friesen, White, & Byers, n.d.). This often leads to a communication difference between the physician and the nurse. “Communication is a lifelong learning process” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, 2013, p. 309) and it needs to be taken seriously when dealing with patients in health care. Communication problems occur in many instances. One particular study found that of forty-three percent of incidents, two-thirds of them were because of lack of communication during handoffs with surgeons (Friesen et al., n.d.). While verbal communication is a major element in patient care handoff failures, written documentation for patient care handoffs can be just as inadequate. In one study conducted about sign-out sheets, it was found that sixty-seven percent of the sheets contained at least one type of error. Of these errors, some were not as serious as others, but the slightest mistake could be fatal (Friesen et al., n.d.). Messages written on a piece of paper can be unclear or illegible. The reader may mistake this information, which can lead to many problems. The nurse, or sender should be able to gather their ideas into an accurate and efficient form for the receiver, or person who is going to translate their …show more content…
Making patient care handoffs a standardized practice across all areas in the health field would decrease the risk of errors. These different solutions would help make communication amongst nurses and other health care workers more clear and concise. Patient care handoffs occur many times in a patients’ stay and must be of the upmost importance. Requiring standardized practices, like the ones in this paper, can help reduce communication errors, medications errors and make it possible for a nurse to react quickly to a patients’ needs. The different types of patient handoffs make the need for standardized procedure even more important. The differences in each unit handoff procedure make it difficult. If all units practiced the same standardized procedure than there would be no miscommunications. All indications prove that there is an urgent need for the standardized
Brooke Grider
Indiana University Kokomo School of Nursing
Patient Care Handoffs
Scope of the Problem
When working in health care there are many responsibilities that need to occur to ensure patients’ health, safety, and happiness. Many of these obligations include informing the patients, making them feel important, and taking precautions when regarding their safety. One major area of importance that has lead to a multitude of patient accidents and problems is what is called patient care handoffs. Patient care handoffs are defined as when “providers exchange information and transfer responsibility for and control over a patient at shift change or when moving the patient from one service or institution to another” …show more content…
Problems arise before even being a full time health care worker. The majority of medical schools do not take time to teach their students the proper ways to hand off their patients (Friesen, White, & Byers, n.d.). This often leads to a communication difference between the physician and the nurse. “Communication is a lifelong learning process” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall, 2013, p. 309) and it needs to be taken seriously when dealing with patients in health care. Communication problems occur in many instances. One particular study found that of forty-three percent of incidents, two-thirds of them were because of lack of communication during handoffs with surgeons (Friesen et al., n.d.). While verbal communication is a major element in patient care handoff failures, written documentation for patient care handoffs can be just as inadequate. In one study conducted about sign-out sheets, it was found that sixty-seven percent of the sheets contained at least one type of error. Of these errors, some were not as serious as others, but the slightest mistake could be fatal (Friesen et al., n.d.). Messages written on a piece of paper can be unclear or illegible. The reader may mistake this information, which can lead to many problems. The nurse, or sender should be able to gather their ideas into an accurate and efficient form for the receiver, or person who is going to translate their …show more content…
Making patient care handoffs a standardized practice across all areas in the health field would decrease the risk of errors. These different solutions would help make communication amongst nurses and other health care workers more clear and concise. Patient care handoffs occur many times in a patients’ stay and must be of the upmost importance. Requiring standardized practices, like the ones in this paper, can help reduce communication errors, medications errors and make it possible for a nurse to react quickly to a patients’ needs. The different types of patient handoffs make the need for standardized procedure even more important. The differences in each unit handoff procedure make it difficult. If all units practiced the same standardized procedure than there would be no miscommunications. All indications prove that there is an urgent need for the standardized