miércoles, 10 de julio de 2013

Challenges to nurses' efforts ... [J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2013 Mar-Apr] - PubMed - NCBI

Challenges to nurses' efforts ... [J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2013 Mar-Apr] - PubMed - NCBI

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2013 Mar-Apr;20(2):245-51. doi: 10.1136/amiajnl-2012-000894. Epub 2012 Jul 21.

Challenges to nurses' efforts of retrieving, documenting, and communicating patient care information.

Source

University of Illinois Chicago, College of Nursing, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. gmkeenan@uic.edu

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To examine information flow, a vital component of a patient's care and outcomes, in a sample of multiple hospital nursing units to uncover potential sources of error and opportunities for systematic improvement.

DESIGN:

This was a qualitative study of a sample of eight medical-surgical nursing units from four diverse hospitals in one US state. We conducted direct work observations of nursing staff's communication patterns for entire shifts (8 or 12 h) for a total of 200 h and gathered related documentation artifacts for analyses. Data were coded using qualitative content analysis procedures and then synthesized and organized thematically to characterize current practices.

RESULTS:

Three major themes emerged from the analyses, which represent serious vulnerabilities in the flow of patient care information during nurse hand-offs and to the entire interdisciplinary team across time and settings. The three themes are: (1) variation in nurse documentation and communication; (2) the absence of a centralized care overview in the patient's electronic health record, ie, easily accessible by the entire care team; and (3) rarity of interdisciplinary communication.

CONCLUSION:

The care information flow vulnerabilities are a catalyst for multiple types of serious and undetectable clinical errors. We have two major recommendations to address the gaps: (1) to standardize the format, content, and words used to document core information, such as the plan of care, and make this easily accessible to all team members; (2) to conduct extensive usability testing to ensure that tools in the electronic health record help the disconnected interdisciplinary team members to maintain a shared understanding of the patient's plan.

PMID:
22822042
[PubMed - in process]
PMCID:
PMC3638178
[Available on 2014/3/8]

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