Standardizing Patient Handoff from the Emergency Department to the Stepdown Inpatient Unit

ECU Author/Contributor (non-ECU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)

Mary Jo Nimmo (Creator)

Institution

East Carolina University (ECU )

Web Site: http://www.ecu.edu/lib/

Abstract: The standardization of the patient handoff has become more imperative with the ever-increasing implementation of the electronic health record. An area especially vulnerable for patient handoff failure is from the Emergency Department (ED) to a Stepdown Inpatient Unit. Based on two sentinel events in the community hospital , a quality improvement project was implemented to standardize the handoff tool used in the electronic health record , improve the nurse's perception of the handoff process and decrease the time from ED bed assignment to arrival on the stepdown inpatient unit (SDIU). A lean process was used to analyze and evaluate the current process and implement the use of the electronic situation , background , assessment , and recommendation (eSBAR) tool. The findings were negligible with no improvement in the nurse's perception of handoff , or time from the ED bed assignment to arrival on the SDIU. There were several gaps in utilizing the eSBAR tool , including each inpatient nurse , was required to add the handoff tool to their summary page manually. After completing the implementation of the project , the existing eSBAR needed further refinements , and several recommendations were made to the health care system.

Additional Information

Publication

Other

Language: English

Date: 2019

Keywords

Electronic SBAR; eSBAR; Emergency Department; Handoff; Lean Process; Patient Handoff

Subjects

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