Author
Listed:
- Anat Drach‐Zahavy
- Hadass Goldblatt
- Ana Maizel
Abstract
Aims and objectives In this study, we aimed to understand how nurses manage handovers at shift change and to identify the working strategies they employ to maintain patients' safety. Background Nursing handovers at shift change are potentially hazardous for patients' quality of care. The nurses on the outgoing and incoming shifts need accurate understanding of the patient's current state, under circumstances that are frequently turbulent and time constrained. Design Qualitative study. Method Eighteen nurses working in a central Israeli hospital participated in the study. Data were collected through in‐depth semi‐structured interviews, conducted over a 10‐month period in 2011–2012. The interviews were tape‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis method was used. Results We revealed three interrelated themes: (1) Adaptation of declared handover goals to goals, which better fit the day‐to‐day routine of the ward; (2) Contextual turbulent circumstances, and (3) Strategies to optimise care for patients. Nurses on the outgoing shift developed organising strategies, ensuring efficient transmission of all important information; nurses on the incoming shift used cross‐checking strategies to verify the accuracy of the received information. Conclusion A nursing handover is both vulnerable and resilient, given its imposed constraints. The handover should be restructured, assuring resilience in patients' care while also limiting the risk for vulnerability. Relevance to clinical practice Handover should be restructured so that it creates opportunities to cross‐check the information against as many sources of information as possible. During handover, special time should be devoted to reading written reports and notes, preferably when the outgoing nurses are still on the ward or are accessible via e‐mail or telephone. Team discussions should focus on achieving agreement about the order and manner of delivering concise information and facilitating shared understanding and trust among nurses.
Suggested Citation
Anat Drach‐Zahavy & Hadass Goldblatt & Ana Maizel, 2015.
"Between standardisation and resilience: nurses' emergent risk management strategies during handovers,"
Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(3-4), pages 592-601, February.
Handle:
RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:24:y:2015:i:3-4:p:592-601
DOI: 10.1111/jocn.12725
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:24:y:2015:i:3-4:p:592-601. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.