Positive Impacts of Electronic hand‐off systems designs on Nurses’ communication effectiveness

Abstract

Aim Different designs of electronic hand‐off systems might have different levels of effectiveness; this study validated the effectiveness of systems with an Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation (ISBAR) design to one without such a design. Background Adverse consequences in hospital commonly occur when there are breakdowns in the transmission of information between team members. To ensure information accuracy and consistency, some Taiwan hospitals implemented electronic hand‐off systems. However, the effectiveness of such systems was not investigated. Methods A quasi‐experiment was conducted to the nurses of two Taiwan case hospitals, one with ISBAR and the other with non‐ISBAR design systems and 200 questionnaires were used to collect data. Results The respondent rate was 72%. Using system with ISBAR design, nurses can enhance their communication effectiveness and further increase their individual benefits at hand‐off. Using a non‐ISBAR hand‐off system, communication effectiveness depends solely on the nurses’ individual cognitive and expressive ability. Conclusion System with ISBAR design can ensure effective information transmission among nurses for care continuity and prevention of adverse events. Implications for Nursing Management Ensuring the design of electronic systems is adequate, nursing managers can save nurses’ time and effort while using the system to perform their regular work effectively and gain competitive advantage.

Implementation of Effective Nurse Communication in Hospital Through Electronic Nursing Documentation (END)

“…The implementation of ineffective communication in handover between shifts is a major factor that contributes to unwanted events, including sentinel events that cause danger or death to patients (3) . The use of the system in transferring nurses between shifts can apparently improve the implementation of effective communication (2) .…”

“…The quality of nursing care provided to patients depends on the ability of nurses to carry out effective communication (1) . The competence of nurses to communicate effectively can reduce errors in providing care to enable the provision of safe and quality care (2). In addition, effective communication helps patients and families to understand how their health conditions, goals and treatment plans will be provided to patients (3,4) .…”

Factors Influencing Clinicians’ Use of Hospital Information Systems for Infection Prevention and Control: Cross-Sectional Study Based on the Extended DeLone and McLean Model

“…An increasing number of hospital practices have confirmed that using information systems improves workflow and improves medical service quality [ 57 ]. Hou et al confirmed that nurses using an electronic handover system can improve their communication efficiency [ 58 ]. Jalali et al discovered that information systems involving drug interactions can support physicians in making decisions more efficiently [ 59 ].…”

Quality and efficiency of a standardized e‐handover system for pediatric nursing: A prospective interventional study

“…The main reasons include overdependence on the individual experience of handover nurses and handover techniques, spending too much time searching for patient‐related information before handover, manual entry tasks (Burgess et al, 2020; Zhu & Mao, 2017), missing IT support, and an inability of nurses to rapidly review critical information during handover (Bukoh & Siah, 2020; Schmidt et al, 2019). This results in omitted, incomplete, erroneous, and truncated handover information, as well as other potential risk factors that are detrimental to patient safety (Bhabra et al, 2007; Hou et al, 2019). An electronic handover (e‐handover) system is a tool that uses a hospital's electronic medical records system to help physicians obtain patient‐related data (Delardes et al, 2020).…”

“…In addition, the design of e‐handover systems has not taken into account standardized evidence‐based handover tools. Furthermore, these systems are mostly used for patient information exchange between physicians, are rarely used by nurses, and are very rarely used in pediatrics (Alhamid et al, 2016; Delardes et al, 2020; Gordon et al, 2018; Hou et al, 2019; Vidyarthi & Coffey, 2016; Yazici et al, 2013). Thus, we developed a standardized e‐handover system that combines the extract‐load‐transform (ELT) database technology and SBAR, and we assessed the effects of implementing a standardized e‐handover system on pediatric nursing handover quality and efficiency.…”