Bedside Shift Reporting Essay

A4. Clinical Implications The implementation of bedside shift reporting is crucial for quality of patient care and patient safety. According to an article found in the American Nurse, 2009 by Trossman, “Shift-change reports are as routine and as important to staff nurses as breathing”. Nurses have identified and averted a number of errors – including delivering wrong medications and continuing orders that were stopped – since the bedside report has been implemented” (p. 7). Lag time from when on coming nurses received report and actually saw their patient was reported to decrease with bedside shift reporting. Julie Truran, RN who is a charge and staff nurse on a pulmonary and infectious disease unit states “It’s improved patient safety

7). In an article by Rosalina Butao, RN, MSN, “Hitting Two Birds With One Bullet: Bedside Shift Reporting; “bedside reporting solidifies compliance to the Joint Commission’s 2009 National Patient Safety Goals: improve the accuracy of patient identification, improve communication among caregivers and encourage patient’s active involvement in their own care” all of which improves patient safety (Butao, 2010 p. S50). In a synthesis of literature by Sherman, et al., (2013), patient benefits include the patient being more knowledgeable and involved in their health care, improved the relationship between the nurse and patient, also improving patient satisfaction, as well as patient safety thus decreasing the number of falls, and increasing discharge times (p. 310). Bedside reporting allows the patient and family the opportunity to intervene during

This systems limits patient involvement creates a delay in patient and nurse visualization. Prior to implementation of bedside shift reporting an evidenced based practice educational sessions will be provided and mandatory for nursing staff to attend (Trossman, 2009, p. 7). Utilizing unit managers and facility educators education stations will be set up in each participating unit. A standardized script for each nurse to utilize during the bedside shift report will be implemented to aid in prioritization, organization and timeliness of report decreasing the amount of information the nurse needs to scribe and allowing the nurse more time to visualize the patient, environment and equipment (Evans 2012, p. 283-284). Verbal and written bedside shift reporting is crucial for patient safety. “Ineffective communication is the most frequently cited cause for sentinel events in the United States and in Australian hospitals 50% of adverse events occur as a result of communication failures between health care professionals.” Utilizing written report information creates accountability and minimizes the loss in important information during the bedside shift report process (Street, 2011 p. 133). To minimize the barriers associated with the change of shift reporting process unit managers need to create a positive environment and reinforce the benefits for the procedural change (Tobiano, et al.,