Miscommunication that occurs during the exchange of information between healthcare providers accounts for approximately 80% of adverse events in the healthcare setting. Nurses devote 10% to 15% of the workday to the nurse-to-nurse hand-off communication. The hand-off itself has remained virtually unchanged for the past 20 years, although the process is prone to errors. The introduction of the electronic health record and mandates to decrease errors and improve patient outcomes has led to an influx of research on the nurse-to-nurse hand-off communication. This article provides a comprehensive synopsis of the hand-off and the state of science on nurse-to-nurse communication using hand-offs. In general, the use and implementation of standardized tools and the nurse's perception of and satisfaction with the hand-off communication have been researched extensively. A standardized hand-off tool increases nurse satisfaction with the structure and consistency of the hand-off. While electronic health record-related forms and devices are not utilized by nurses, communication patterns and communication behaviors can also influence the effectiveness of the hand-off message. The areas of memory, cognition, and content of the hand-off affect the transfer and recall of hand-off information. Continued research on hand-off communication is essential to ensure patient safety.

Natural language processing software programs are used primarily to mine both structured and unstructured data from the electronic health record and other healthcare databases. The mined data are used, for example, to identify vulnerable at-risk populations and predicting hospital associated infections and complications. Natural language processing programs are seldomly used in healthcare research to analyze the how providers are communicating essential patient information from one provider to another or how the language that is used impacts patient outcomes. In addition to analyzing how the message is being communicated, few studies have analyzed what is communicated during the exchange in terms of data, information, and knowledge. The analysis of the “how” and “what” of healthcare provider communication both written and verbal has the potential to decrease errors and improve patient outcomes. Here, we will discuss the feasibility of using an innovative within-methods triangulation data analysis to uncover the contextual and linguistic meaning of the nurse-to-nurse change-of-shift hand-off communication. The innovative within-methods triangulation data analysis uses a natural language processing software program and content analysis to analyze the nursing hand-off communication.

Miscommunication occurring during the nursing handoff continues to be a primary cause of sentinel events and adverse patient outcomes. The primary purpose of the nursing handoff is to communicate essential patient data, information, and knowledge to ensure the safe continued continuity of care. The aim of this study was to examine the content of the nurse-to-nurse change-of-shift handoff communication in terms of data, information, and knowledge for both bedside and nonbedside handoffs of a patient who has experienced a clinical event. The setting was an urban medical center on a medical-surgical floor.The sample consisted of one nurse giving and one nurse receiving the handoff (n = 19 registered nurses). Five bedside and five nonbedside handoffs were audio recorded and analyzed using content analysis. The handoff overall contained 34.7% data, 51.7% information, and 13.6% knowledge. The nonbedside handoff compared with the bedside handoff contained a substantially higher percentage of data and less information. The percentage of knowledge being communicated in both the nonbedside and bedside handoff was low at 13.6% and 13.7%, respectively. The percentage of data compared with the percentage of knowledge in the handoff places the nurses at greater risk of experiencing cognitive lapses due to cognitive overload.