Bedside Shift Reports Handout
Often when patients receive a diagnosis they do not fully comprehend what it means and they usually have questions about their illness and care. This is no different for inpatients. Unfortunately, with an increased patient load in hospitals, doctors and hospital staff are not able to spend amble amount of time with individual patients. The implementation of bedside shift report is supposed to help both the patients to better understand his condition. The concept involves an effective handoff of the patient between the previous and next shift. Basically a nurse completing a 12-hour shift relays information to the nurse about to begin the next 12-hour shift. The transference of this information is supposed to be done at the patient’s bedside, relaying the patient’s safety and effective care. Reporting in the presence of the patient is supposed to help prevent any adverse effects and overall medical errors. The implementation of the Bedside shift report is designed to increase patient satisfaction, and it does if the act is actually performed. Patient satisfaction scores regarding bedside reporting show either a raise or a decline patient satisfaction and that is a problem.
There are many benefits bedside reports mostly because the care is patient- centered. The patient feels involved in their care and this empowers them. When the nurse performs this act of bedside reporting it shows and reassures the patient of team effort and communication. It shows that the staff is able to work together and provide proper care, raising patient satisfaction. This is in contrast to when reports are done in the hallway or at the nurse’s station or even recorded instead. The patient is totally unaware and uninvolved in his care at all. This leaves the patient confused and surely unsatisfied.
Another benefit is that the patient themselves or a family member can become an additional resource of the patients’ condition. Sometimes things are left out in the history or the information was not well communicated. Having the correction and addition of information is a plus. In comparison, nurses rushing through the report or leaving out details assuming it is all in the chart anyway decreases patient safety and even compliance to follow management plan, simply because they do not understand. Once again this will decrease satisfaction in patients. Communication deficits are definitely a problem surrounding shift change reporting.
There are no so many specializations that the problem of too many “handoffs” are a reality. Minimizing the ineffectiveness of bedside reporting can be achieved when it involves the staff of the same unit, but sometimes more than one specialty is involved in the patient’s care. A study by Tonya Johnson focuses on just that by studying the effects of handing of patients from the emergency department to the specified ward. The study looks at bedside reporting and identifies the same patient satisfaction if implemented correctly. The study also looks at the transition process of the patient throughout their care and how some information may be left out and patient involvement …
