Shift Report (Nursing)

00:00 Welcome back everyone. As we've discussed, communication is critical in the profession of nursing.

00:07 One of the most important communications between nurses is the shift report. A nurse shift report is defined as a process of exchanging vital patient information, responsibility, and accountability between the off-going and the oncoming nurses in an effort to ensure safe continuity of care and the delivery of best clinical practices. There are different types of nurse shift report. The first type is a written report. This involves the off-going nurse writing down a written report of everything that occurred the shift before to the ongoing nurse. There may or may not be the opportunity for interaction between the 2 nurses. Similarly, there is the recorded version of a nurse shift report. This again involves the off-going nurse recording verbally what happened in the off-going shift for the oncoming nurse to know what happened. Again, may or may not have any interaction between the two. Now one of the most common types of nurse shift report is the face-to-face.

01:07 This is where both nurses, both off-going and ongoing, actually sit down, have a conversation, go over what happened in the previous shift, what's scheduled to happen in the next shift, and has the opportunity to have a dialogue and ask questions and clarify any issues before they arise. Now, one of the most preferred methods of nurse shift report is the bedside report. This is where both nurses actually enter the patient rim and have a conversation at the bedside.

01:34 This allows the patient and, if possible, family members that are there to engage in the conversation so that everyone agrees and plays a part in the actions that are going to be going on for the following day. Then you have what's called blended. There is a blend of report which kind of usually involves 1 or more of the other ones most commonly the face-to-face interaction with the bedside and what happens in this one is sometimes there is some information or things that 2 nurses need to talk about that may not be appropriate at the bedside, they will have that face-to-face before they actually go into the patient's room and they will finish the report at the bedside. Now some of the benefits of bedside report means that you are going to experience improved patient safety and quality, you're actually going to have an improved experience of care because the patients and the family feel involved, they feel like they have a voice in their plan of care which is very satisfying for them. You're also going to have improved nursing staff satisfaction because you have the ability for both nurses to engage either privately, outside, or inside the rim to ask questions and clarify if there are any misunderstandings before the next shift begins. You're also going to have improved time management and accountability. This happens when the off-going nurse and the ongoing nurse understand what has happened, what needs to happen and when you're at the bedside you actually get an opportunity to find out if something was missed. If something wasn't done, then the off-going nurse has the opportunity to correct it before the ongoing nurse actually assumes the care. So both really experience improved time management and accountability and satisfaction from the bedside report. So here's a great example.

03:17 Let's walk through this and let's see what types of benefits are experienced from this type of situation. So, Tanya and Michelle are conducting a bedside report with Mrs. Jones who was admitted for a severe wound infection yesterday. During the report, Michelle noted that she had not yet administered an ordered antibiotic which was currently due. So as the off-going nurse, Michelle administers the ordered medication. So what primary benefit was realized due to the nurse bedside report? Could it have been improved patient safety and quality, improved experience of care, improved nursing staff satisfaction, and improved time management and accountability? Now don't forget, all of these may actually be correct but which one is the primary benefit realized from the situation? And it was improved time management and accountability. Having bedside report allowed the nurse to realize that she hadn't yet administered the medication so she was able to correct that before the ongoing shift find out about it and ultimately would have had to administer the medication on her own. So nurse shift changes require the successful transfer of information between nurses to prevent adverse events and medical errors. Patients and families can also play a really important role to make sure that these transitions in care are both safe and effective. So what do we learn today? We learned that an effective shift report is really just a compilation of details reported by a patient's nurse. They're created by nurses who are wrapping up their shift and then provided to those nurses that are starting the next shift. These details really should include a patient's current medical status along with his or her medical history, individual medication needs, any allergies, a record of the patient's pain levels, and the pain management plan as well as any discharge instructions. Now without these details, a nurse could potentially endanger a patient's life. Also, a shift report allows nurses to understand where their patients stand in regard to recovery by providing an overall picture of a patient's improvement or decline over the last several hours. Now by knowing what has previously occurred in a patient's treatment plan, nurses can proceed with the right steps to contribute to positive outcomes. So those are some of the main points and takeaways of a shift report. I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much.