Designing and Validating an Evidence-Based, Shift-to-Shift Handover Bundle for Nurses and Physicians

Abstract

This article reports a study aimed at developing and validating an evidence-based, shift-to-shift handover bundle for nurses and physicians to be used at shift changes in intensive care and emergency units. Deficient or absent clinical handovers, or failures to transfer information, responsibility, and accountability can have unwanted consequences for hospitalized patients, particularly those at critical areas. Clinical handovers are practiced every day, in many ways, in all institutional health care settings. Despite increasing demand for structured processes to guide clinical handovers, standardized handover bundles for nurses and physicians are limited in the emergency and intensive care unit. As a result of this study, a shift-to-shift handover bundle was created, which was an evidence-based research design. This bundle is expected to be helpful for proper patient transfers between these critical areas, ensuring patient safety and efficient quality management.