Patient Safety: How to Improve the Patient Handoff Process

The patient handoff process is one of the most critical moments for patient safety in an emergency department. When emergency medical services personnel arrive at your door with a patient, challenges will arise, and an appropriate response by Emergency Department staff is necessary for a successful handoff.

When it comes to an EMS-to-ED handoff the greatest challenges lie in communication. There’s an increased potential for miscommunication — or lack of communication — that can have dire consequences for the patient.

Researchers recently evaluated 90 patient handoffs, studies of which have been limited when it comes to components of quality care. Looking at communication between EMS personnel and ED staff during the handoff, researchers found that EMS personnel provided ED staff:

• Information related to the patient’s chief concern 78 percent of the time;
• A description of the scene in 58 percent of all handoffs;
• A complete set of vital signs in 57 percent of instances;
• A description of physical exam finding for 47 percent of patients;
• An overall assessment of the patient’s clinical status in 31 percent of cases.

Researchers did note that handoffs between certified paramedics and ED staff resulted in higher instances of communication of vital signs and physical exam findings, and that paramedics offered an overall assessment more than twice as often than other levels of EMS staff such as EMTs.

This study confirms that there is significant room for improvement during the handoff process of critically ill and injured patients, researchers concluded.

So how can the process be improved in order to provide patients with the high quality of care they expect from EMS providers and ED staff?

Another study looking at this same topic found that EMS providers often saw themselves “as advocates for their patients during the challenging EMS-to-ED handoffs.” And they, in turn, offered four strategies for improving the handoff process, some of which address issues related to communication, while others addressed EMS and hospital protocols that make handoffs more challenging.

Tactics EMS providers suggested include:

1. “Communicate directly with the ED provider responsible for the patient’s care.”
2. “Increase interdisciplinary feedback, transparency, and shared understanding of scope of practice between out-of-hospital and hospital-based providers.”
3. “Standardize some (but not all) aspects of the handoff.”
4. “Harness technology to close gaps in information exchange.”

While these solutions offered by EMS providers have the potential to be effective ways to improve the handoff process between EMS and ED providers, buy-in would be necessary from the ED standpoint.

Do you think these solutions are reasonable? What can emerFgency departments do on their end to help facilitate a safe, high-quality handoff experience for patients? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below or feel free to drop me a line.

Sources:

Prehospital Emergency Care: “Quantitative Analysis of the Content of EMS Handoff of Critically Ill and Injured Patients to the Emergency Department.”

Annals of Emergency Medicine: “Optimizing the patient handoff between emergency medical services and the emergency department.”

Tips to Set the Scene for Open Patient Communication

We’ve all heard the saying, “There is no such thing as a stupid question.” But how good of a job is your emergency department nursing and medical staff at making patients truly feel that way? Your patient satisfaction and HCAHPs scores are riding on it.

Healthcare has become consumer driven. Patient satisfaction surveys ask patients if nurses and doctors care about them, if they were given the information they needed to get well, and whether they are likely to recommend your hospital to someone else. Reimbursement is dependent on the effectiveness of our communication and the effectiveness of our treatment.

Here are some tips to help your team in their communication with patients.

1) Make Eye Contact. To engage the patients and families try being mindful to look them in the eye and listen with a caring and warm attitude.  Recognize this first step is the most important in establishing a rapport and this rapport will most likely set flow for the patient’s entire experience.  

2) Use Your Senses. You want to develop a communication style that is adaptive to the situation and patient you’re working with. Look, listen and feel to understand what is being said and not being said. Empathy and acknowledging the patient’s well-being and comfort demonstrate respect.

3) Anticipate. When you listen to understand your patients and their families it helps you anticipate concerns they may have. This can be very comforting. Anticipating involves knowing customarily what, when, why care is a certain way (process) and then thinking about questions the patient might have about the process but be too intimidated to ask. Try making thoughtful remarks such as “Many patients what to know when the doctor will see you”. Then acknowledge that the doctor has several patients and follow-up with information on how quickly the doctor will see them.

4) Try a Different Delivery Style. Think about creating a relationship where patients feel comfortable talking to us. You can create this type of relationship if you understand how to initiate conversations using techniques called “appreciative inquiry or welcoming questions.” These open channels of communication between patients and caregivers. That’s so important because patients have information that is crucial to helping them get better.

Appreciative inquiry involves framing questions in a way that helps you gather relevant information, foster a give and take in communication, and encourage positive action as a result

Rather than just communicating in short questions or commands, it involves asking an open ended question around the topic you want to address. Then you can guide to conversation to impart important information.

This might be a communication tactic which is different than the informative caregiver mode of communication that you’re used to. It’s no secret nurses and doctors are busy caregivers, we often need to make “a long story short” -- get to the point quickly and with technical accuracy. But while that is perfectly OK and actually important in communication between one shift of nurses to the next or between nurses and doctors or PAs, this hospital-speak is sometimes lost on patients.

In addition to being confusing, it often doesn’t create relationships with patients and family that inspire open and effective communication. Patients can become intimidated and are reluctant to ask questions because their nurse or doctor has such urgency.

How to Use Appreciative Inquiry
Here’s an example you might use when talking to a patient before discharge:

“We have a lot of patients that come to the ED for migraines. Have you sought out help for them from the emergency department before?”

This sets the scene in an empathetic way. You appreciate their problem -- the migraine. You set them at ease by letting them know they are not alone in seeking help for their type of problem and don’t feel scolded for it.

If they answer “Yes, twice before,” you can share information that will direct them toward taking positive action going forward. For example, you could then say: “We know about this clinic where you can get help managing your migraines.”

5) Be patient. Keep in mind that when you try this type of approach you may get more questions from patients. For example, a question about how long they can expect their recovery to take might be something you automatically know. But with patients you can’t take for granted that this is common knowledge. Patients and family don’t know what they don’t know, and need guidance to help them ask the right questions and establish expectations.

Remember, there are no stupid questions. Questions are a good thing. It means the patient is tuned in. Asking questions can help them better understand what role they need to take in recovering. Having an ongoing conversation can help you provide the best care.

Being composed, acknowledging, listening to understand, being responsive, knowing, and caring has the potential to engage and create a rapport with the patient and their family which impacts their overall experience. Interestingly, these approaches to communication can increase understanding, focus and efficiency too.

If you’re interested in talking more about communication techniques or making appreciative inquiry something you practice in your ED, drop me a message. I’m happy to talk more about it with you.

Create a Culture of Carefulness and Communication

Last week I mentioned two ways you can boost your patient satisfaction scores. Here's one doctor's perspective on how upping her communication game helps her provide quality care to the patients he sees. It's a good read.

Communication is another area that you can focus on to boost scores. Solid communication among emergency department staff is so important. It influences patients' care and perception of that care.

As she talks about, establishing solid communication at shift changes is key. She also offers his personal tips and tricks for how to do it. Additionally, I love the shout-outs to the nursing staff. Do you have any things that have helped you create a "culture of carefulness and communication" in your emergency department?

This blog has got me thinking. In my next post we'll take a deeper dive into polishing up communication in the emergency department.

Pay Attention to Safety and Caring and Patient Satisfaction Scores Will Rise

Four Areas to Target Including One Surprise

Patient satisfaction can seem like an ephemeral thing. Is there anything tangible you can focus on to boost it?

Several studies have indicated that yes, yes there is. It is all about getting back to the basics. It appears that by focusing on things that improve safety and caring, patient satisfaction scores will rise as well.

A review published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 looked at 55 studies that measured care and patient satisfaction in several types of healthcare settings. The idea for the review came about in an effort to answer the question: should patient satisfaction even be used as a measure to rate hospitals?

The review found that, higher patient satisfaction scores were often linked to higher safety and clinical efficiency scores.

“Overall, it was more common to find positive associations between patient experience and patient safety and clinical effectiveness than no associations,” said the authors.

If patient satisfaction scores were high, the same hospital was likely to have high patient safety and patient experience scores as well.

Results from a Patient Safety and Quality Care survey of studies in 2008 speculated that this might be because the same things that help prevent serious complications, patient identification errors, infections, medication errors and falls also happen to improve patient satisfaction.

What Steps Can Your Emergency Department Take to Improve Safety, Caring and Satisfaction?

There are many things you can do and I am happy to talk to you about a unique plan for your hospital but for the purpose of this post, we’ll take a look at four biggies.

1) Take a look at communications. Make sure you have procedures in place to make communication of patient information easy. Areas to look at? Transfer of information between caregivers, shifts and different departments within your hospital. Looking at your procedures for intake and discharge can be especially effective.

Nursing leaders, you can reinforce the importance of communication in your rounding and bedside reporting to oncoming nursing staff. Modelling this behavior yourself -- leading by example -- can help ensure the whole nursing staff adopts this approach.

2) Make sure staffing coverage meets the demand for patient care.AHRQ’s Patient Safety Network has concluded what most of us know -- nurses are critical in ensuring patient safety. So let’s help set them up for success. Staff that aren’t pressed for time and stressed running from one emergency to the next has the time to provide quality care. Appropriate coverage also minimizes mistakes.

So how can you make this a reality? Experienced nursing leadership knows the wisdom of a data-driven staffing and scheduling approach. You can use healthcare analytics to understand demand and your functional capacity to solve your staffing challenges.

3) Encourage an environment of trust and non-judgmental for reporting errors. Staff is less likely to report errors or perform well when there is a “blame game” type of atmosphere. Patient safety and satisfaction suffer. Fostering the right culture can help remedy this.

A “just culture” -- one that strikes the right balance between openness and accountability -- improves safety without being arbitrarily punitive. The Leapfrog Group, a circle of large employers focused on improving health care safety, has recognized the importance of a fair and just culture in improving safety.

There is a methodology and algorithm you can apply to help you implement this type of culture and spell out guidelines for appropriate actions when errors are made.

4) Limit noises to promote healing and focus. This one may come as a bit of a surprise. Patient satisfaction surveys tell us patients are not as happy in loud environments. Studies have found that noise hinders healing, causes sleep deprivation, and increases pain.

So upon a second look -- it also makes sense that chaotic unscripted emergency department noise can compromise safety. Researchers have found that louder healthcare environments produce more medical mistakes. It makes it hard to concentrate, may desensitize staff to important alarms, and interferes with the effective communication between caregivers. The Joint Commission made a National Patient Safety Goal on managing clinical alarms systems in 2014. They recognized that if they are not properly managed, they can compromise patient safety.

To take control of noise you need to understand it. Every interaction, every piece of equipment, every medical alarm, every emergency page, and every phone creates noise. Even patients, visitors and others add to it.  

To solve this multi-faceted problem, engage everyone in pinpointing sources of noise and taking personal responsibility to limit it. Sometimes changes to the physical environment can help too.

So Why Does Improving Safety Yield Other Benefits?

None of the study authors pinpointed the whys behind the link between good safety scores and high patient satisfaction. Perhaps emergency departments that rate well on patient satisfaction measures are also paying more attention to safety rules too.

Or maybe it is because people go to emergency departments to get better. When adverse events are kept to a minimum and safety is a priority, people are more likely to improve and heal. It’s natural that those patients will be more satisfied.

What I do know for sure is that when you invest in improving processes and communication to improve safety and care it can yield a double-win!

If you need help examining safety protocols or your patient satisfaction survey results and finding ways to improve, I can help. Contact me. I’d love to talk over your emergency department’s unique situation with you.

SOURCES:

Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare: “Safety and Satisfaction: Where are the Connections?”

BMJ Open: “A systematic review of evidence on the links between patient experience and clinical safety and effectiveness.”

AHRQ PSNet: “Nursing and Patient Safety.”

Hospitals and Health Network: “Runaway Noise in the Hospital.”

New England Journal of Medicine: “Balancing "no blame" with accountability in patient safety.” Wachter RM, 2009.

The Joint Commission: “The Joint Commission Announces 2014 National Patient Safety Goal.”