This document summarizes research from 5 articles on nurse report sheets. The articles found that report sheets are important for nurses to know their patients, but different nurses want different information. Standardizing report sheets could help effective communication during shift changes and decrease errors. However, more research is still needed to determine what specific information should be standardized and how report sheets impact patient outcomes. Future studies should further examine how to best improve report sheets.
This document summarizes research from 5 articles on nurse report sheets. The articles found that report sheets are important for nurses to know their patients, but different nurses want different information. Standardizing report sheets could help effective communication during shift changes and decrease errors. However, more research is still needed to determine what specific information should be standardized and how report sheets impact patient outcomes. Future studies should further examine how to best improve report sheets.
This document summarizes research from 5 articles on nurse report sheets. The articles found that report sheets are important for nurses to know their patients, but different nurses want different information. Standardizing report sheets could help effective communication during shift changes and decrease errors. However, more research is still needed to determine what specific information should be standardized and how report sheets impact patient outcomes. Future studies should further examine how to best improve report sheets.
Running head: THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
The Importance of Nurse Report Sheets and How to Improve Them
Kaytlyn Stephens Dixie State University
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
2 The Importance of Nurse Report Sheets and How to Improve Them Countless studies have been conducted on different aspects of nurse report sheets and what information is more effective to have on them. Nurses use report sheets or brains to organize their day and take and receive report with. There are a variety of different nursing report sheets available for nurses to use depending on how many patients you have or what type of setting you work in. The problem that is surfacing is what information should be on a nurse report sheet and how can we improve nursing report sheets. Sometimes it is hard to find a brain with all the information you want on it. Research has been done about nursing report sheets that show how vital they are to a nurse. Nurse report sheets are much more than just the piece of paper, it also goes in conjunction with actually giving hand-off shift report. Some of the articles about nurse report sheets also talk about nurse-to-nurse report. These research articles have given information on how to improve nurse report sheets. This paper examines research and peer reviewed articles written by many different authors about the importance of report sheets, what information should be on a report sheet and how to improve nursing report sheets. Literature Review Article One In Kelley, Docherty, and Brandon (2013) article entitled Information Needed to Support Knowing the Patient is about knowing our patients the authors researched what information is really needed for nurses to know there patients. This study sampled 123 nurses who worked in two different pediatric intensive care units (PICUs), 15 of these nurses reported to the email and wanted to participate in the research project. It is important to know your patients, but you need the right tools to help you do so. One of the results from this study was that the nurses did not have enough information about the patient on hand. It is easy to go look up information in the
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
3 chart or computer but when those technologies are not available, all you have is your report sheet and your memory. There were three types of information sources that are needed for a nurse to know her patient. The third one was nurses paper report sheet. Nurses that were interviewed talked about nurse paper report in there interviews, the majority felt like it was puts everything about the patient together (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). Another statement from a nurse was this [report sheet] is something that lasts that shift and the nurse will have it kept in a pocket, in the room at the patients bedside, or tucked inside the front side of our red chart [bedside chart] (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). Through this research it shows the importance of having a report sheet that has useful information on it so you are able to know information about your patient. Also in the article the authors mentioned how easy it is to find information about a patient because it is all located on one single sheet of paper. In conclusion of the research article the authors felt future studies are needed to explore the specific information temporarily stored on the paper-based report sheets and the work processes supported by the report sheets (Kelley, Docherty, & Brandon, 2013). As you can see by this research article, it is essential for nurses to have a nurse report sheet each shift and have updated and relevant information on them so they can better know each one of their patients. Article Two Similarly Kim Wheeler (2015) studied the impact of nurse report sheets. In Wheelers (2015) article she talked about effective communication and handoff shift report. In her research she found out that each nurse wanted different information given to them in report and on their report sheet. One nurse may view information on the report sheet as non-important but the other nurse may feel that it is important. This makes it hard to have one standardized handoff tool; which was the point of this article because Wheeler believed it would help with more effective
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
4 communication and decrease the time it takes to give hand-off shift report. Wheeler believed there were solutions and strategies help with this problem. One solution was to implement standardized process to help guide the transfer on important information during shift report, but she did not specify what the standard process should be and believe it should be left to the organization or workplace to implement protocols depending on the setting (wheeler, 2015. p 13.) In conclusion to this article the authors stated that there is a need to standardize the process of hand-off report and nurse report sheets but more information is needed to find out what those process should be to make it more effective and overall help nurses be able to get the important information they need for every patient. Article Three In another research article entitled Challenges to nurses' efforts of retrieving, documenting, and communicating patient care information the authors Gail Keenan, Elizabeth Yakel, Karen Dunn Lopez, Dana Tschannen, and Yvonne B Ford researched how information flows. The authors refer to the nurse report sheet as a care information flow. This flow was designed to help decrease errors and prevent new ones from happening. The authors did a direct observation of the nurses work for a total of 200 hours. The results showed that there were three themes that emerged. Those themes were (1) variation in nurse documentation and communication; (2) the absence of a centralized care overview in the patient's electronic health record, ie, easily accessible by the entire care team; and (3) rarity of interdisciplinary communication (Keenan, Yakel, Lopez, Tschannen, & Ford, 2013). I focused on the first theme about communication and documentation because this is related to nurse report sheets. In conclusion to this article the authors found two different ways to address the missing pieces to this research, the first one was standardize the format and contact of core information and test
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
5 electronic health records. My focus on the first recommendation of standardizing information would make it easier because all the staff will have the same information on their patients. The conclusion of this article did not give a definitive findings but it gave very important information on what information is needed to complete for this study. Article Four Unlike the other studies about nurse report sheets, Zou and Zhang (2016) researched the hand-off report related errors after a united implemented a new standardized nursing hand-off form (nurse report sheet). A new nursing report sheet was standardize to help the hand-off report process and decrease nursing related errors that could have been prevented. In a prospective intervention study, the authors used a group of nurses and did a pre-test and post-test to determine the outcomes. The outcomes were encouraging, nursing errors started out at 9.2 per 100 admissions and dropped to 5.7 per 100 admissions (Zou & Zhang, 2016 p. 66-67). That is a 3.5% decrease in nurse related errors because of the use of a standardized nurse report sheet. The authors concluded that more studies will have to be done to determine if a standardized nurse report sheet would be beneficial to important patient outcomes and decrease on nurse related errors. Article Five Lastly Carroll, Williams and Gallivan (2012) researched communication between nurses in change of shift hand-offs. There is a problem with communication related to nurse shift change hand-off reports. The authors used a multi-method study on two different medical units to research this specific topic. As the authors progressed in the research, a common problem they ran into was that each nurse and each shift had different expectations related to a good hand-off. This makes giving and receiving a good report difficult. To help try and improve communication,
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6 they tried to use a standardize report sheet that had basic patient information for each patient the nurse had. The authors found out that The incoming nurse is multi-tasking to read the written documentation and also hear the outgoing nurses report (Carroll, Williams, & Gallivan, 2012, p 592.). The nurses were distracted while getting report because they were trying to read the information on the nurse report sheet while the nurse from the previous shift was giving report. This made the nurse miss important information. They concluded that it is important to give ample time to receive report, read report sheet before report starts and ask questions if you have questions. This article was the least helpful when researching my topic but it did give me good insight on how nurse report sheets can actually effect nurse handoff shift report. Future Studies To be able to get a complete understanding about nurse report sheets and the information that needs to be on them it is necessary to conduct more studies that examine all the different aspects that go into nursing report sheets. This includes but is not limited to information that nurses want on report sheets, what information is needed for different areas in nursing and how to improve nursing report sheets. The relationships between nurses easy access to patient information and patient outcomes are directly linked. There needs to be more studies and research related to nurse report sheets to gain an understanding of what is the best way to improve nurse report sheets and if standardized nurse hand-off tools and nurse report sheets help patient safety and outcomes. Conclusion The purpose of this literature review was to review studies and articles about the importance of report sheets, what information should be on a report sheet and how to improve nursing report sheets. In the articles I researched I found that every article contributed to nurse
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
7 report sheets. In the first article by Kelley, Docherty, and Brandon (2013) brought helpful insight on what information is important for the nurse to know about each patient and how to contribute that to the nurse report sheet. And in Zou, Xiang-Jun; Zhang, and Yin-Ping (2016) showed statics about how standardized nurse report sheet can improve patient outcomes and help decrease nurse related errors. These articles that I have found have helped me learn more about nurse report sheets and there importance. This research has shown what information a nurse needs to know and how that information can be applied to the nurse report sheet. The article gave different perspective on nurse report sheets. More research needs to be done on this subject to show more information about nurse report sheets.
THE IMPORTANCE OF NURSE REPORT SHEETS
8 References Carroll, J.S., Williams,M.,& Gallivan,T.M.(2012). The ins and outs of change of shift handoffs between nurses: a communication challenge, BMJ Qual Saf, 21(7), 586-593. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1914&context=articles Keenan, G., Yakel, E., Lopez, K.D., Tschannen, D., & Ford, Y.B. (2013). Challenges to nurses' efforts of retrieving, documenting, and communicating patient care information. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 20(2), 245-251. DOI: 10.1136/amiajnl2012-000894 Kelley, T., Docherty, S., & Brandon, D. (2013). Information Needed to Support Knowing the Patient. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 36(4), 351363. http://doi.org/10.1097/ANS.0000000000000006 Wheeler, K.K. (2015). Effective handoff communication. Nursing Critical Care, 10(6), 13-15. doi: 10.1097/01.CCN.0000472849.85679.c4 Zou, X. Jun & Zhang, Y. P. (2016). Rates of Nursing Errors and Handoffs-Related Errors in a Medical Unit Following Implementation of a Standardized Nursing Handoff Form. Journal of Nursing Care Quality 31(1), 61-67. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000133