Quality Improvement of Nursing Handover in the inpatient Department Sri Chiang Mai Hospital. Quality Improvement

Abstract

The nursing handoff communication is a transfer and acceptance of patient care of patient clinical information from one nurse to another. This Effective information transfer is important for continued patient care safety and reduces adverse events that occur to patients. The purpose of this developmental study was to improve the quality of nursing handover in the Inpatient Department at Sri Chiang Mai Hospital, using the ISBAR communication process as a conceptual framework for development. Data were collected between August and October 2023 using the ISBAR technique evaluation form (27 items) and 12 items from the incident record form for official duty transfers. Content validity was verified by experts. It has an Index of Concordance (IOC) of 0.90 and was tested for reliability with Cronbach's coefficient alpha of 0.89. The data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation statistics, as well as Wilcoxon test statistics.

        The results indicate that, following the implementation of the nursing shift handover process based on the ISBAR principles, the quality of nurses' shift handover, measured in terms of accuracy and completeness of nursing information, significantly improved compared to the pre-implementation phase. After using the nursing shift transfer process according to the IS Bar principles quality of nurses' shift submission in terms of accuracy. The completeness of nursing information was higher than before using the process overall significantly at the 0.05 level, and the incidence of nursing shift transfer decreased. In conclusion, implementing the IS Bar technique for shift transfer can enhance the quality of patient information exchange among nurses, thereby providing significant and maximum benefits for patient care.