Nurse to Nurse Shift Reports to Increase Patient Satisfaction

Document Type:Research Paper

Subject Area:Nursing

Document 1

Instead of using a provider-centered care system, a bedside shift report is instead aligned with a different system i. e. Patient-centered care system that positively affects the outcomes of nursing and the satisfaction of the patients. The major concern of health care has been on how to eradicate medical errors despite the fact that currently, errors are still prevalent and are causing harms to the patients. According to recent researches, lack of proper communication between patients and nurses has been identified as the leading root cause of the large percent of medical errors. Nurse to nurse shift reports can be described as the time the patient care is handed over to the oncoming nurse by the off going nurse. The advantage of conducting nurse to nurse shift report at the bedside of the patient is to allow involvement of the patient and the family members to be involved.

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Another importance is that the patient and the family members are also allowed to participate in terms of sharing information thus ensuring that the family, patient and the team goals are aligned and identified carefully. The reports improve the relationship between the patient and the nurse, cause the discharge time to occur fast and also leads to better accountability not forgetting prioritization of the patient before the start of the shift (Aiken, et al, 2012). Bedside shift reports were implemented as a new policy to replace the shift to shift report that was done at the nursing station. Among the challenges encountered by the nurse to nurse bedside, reports include, lack of clear information that should be included in the report and how to include it.

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This causes the nurse to think that bedside report requires a lot of time to complete. Also, the shifts sometimes become frustrating where one nurse is required to take a report that has been reported by three to four nurses meaning that they will require understanding the report to be able to take over from the previous nurse. Also with busy and fast-paced environment in the hospitals where some patients are getting admitted while other are being discharged, may inhibit the writer from completing their report before shift time. To overcome the challenges, activities expected to impact bedside shift report should be implemented such as, patient contribution and getting support from the quality improvement and education director departments. Everybody (i. e.

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the nurses, the patients and the family members) knows what is going and that reduces the rate of miscommunication errors. It is clear that the satisfaction of patients rose after a study was conducted by Halm (2013) to the discharged patients. The majority explained that they were encouraged when involved in the participation of bedside shift reports. Not only is the communication between patient and nurses expanded during the bedside shift reports but also, caring and safety for the patient is enhanced. Also by making sure that the nurses are trained to enhance clearly on bedside report and making sure that their confidence is increased. References Aiken, L. H. , Sermeus, W. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, 24 (4), 348-353. Retrieved from: http://www.

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