Healthcare Barrier
Introduction
Discontinuity is a necessary reality in health care because no provider can stay in the hospital around the clock. Thus, it is common for patients to be transferred among multiple units, to be treated, and to be evaluated by dozens of professions during hospitalization (Lee, Phan, Dorman, Weaver & Pronovost, 2016). Every provider who works with the patients applies his observation and assessment and adds information about the patient to the chain. However, the handoff of patients creates errors when clinical data is not transferred accurately between providers. Herein is a discussion of the problem, a proposed solution, and expected outcomes.
The Problem
Healthcare Barrier Hand-Off Communication is an enormous weak point in health care because it runs risks such as information getting forgotten, garbled, and not passed on. Failure to properly communicate a patient’s information results in severe adverse outcomes in the patients because key medications may be omitted, and key symptoms and changes in the patient can be missed (Alotaibi & Federico, 2017). According to a survey conducted by Harvard’s Risk Management Foundation, handoff communication barrier in medical practices is responsible for 30% of all malpractice claims in the US. Surprisingly, when the handoffs involve cross-disciplinary exchanges, the likely hood for communication breakdowns is twice as in the intradisciplinary communication. For example, 25 % of communication about surgical procedures involving handoffs between the surgical teams and allied health professionals such as dietitians and physiotherapists results in communication failures that can cause procedural errors.
Proposed Solution
When handoff communication fails, non-existent documentation often responsible. Thus, investing in communication technology to enhance patient’s recording can be an effective solution in addressing barriers in communication during handoff. Hospitals can integrate their Electronic Health Records (EHRs) with technology such as Clinical Communication and Collaboration (CC&C) platform to facilitate communication between teams. The CC&C platform ensures secure messaging of patients’ information during handoffs from a desktop or telephone application in a HIPAA compliant manner (Buurman et al.,2016). The technology avails data from the EHRs to providers and offers them the capacity to communicate and view updates instantly from the convince of their smartphones. With this technology, health care providers can easily document details about a patient and interact with the team members for diagnostics and treatment plans.
Expected Outcomes
The expected outcomes for initiating the technology include enhanced patient safety and continuity care provision. Concerning patient safety, the technology can maintain all patients’ health information into one easily accessible record, ensuring that adverse events do not occur due to unsafe care (Müller, Jürgens, Redaèlli, Klingberg, Hautz, & Stock,2018). The reason is that the technology would ensure that all health providers in a hospital have access to a patient’s vital details, diagnostics, results, histories, and treatment minimizing incidences of wrong doses and procedures being administered in the patient due to medical errors. The (CC&C) platform would facilitate continuity of care based approach by closing the gaps created by handoffs. Unlike the single discrete information distribution process, the technology promotes interdependency in the transition processes for the care continuum. Thus, accurate up to date information as well as pertinent information would be passed to the oncoming health providers. Therefore, the platform can ensure continuity even after handoff because the receiving staff can get the most up to date information about a patient.
Conclusion
Increased fragmentations in care have resulted in the unintended consequence of increased care handoffs. These transitions often require health providers to transmit clinical information, but if data is misunderstood or omitted, medical errors may occur (Fucik, 2019). However, health care organizations can address communication barriers in handoffs through the use of technology to realize outcomes such as patient safety and continued care.
References
Alotaibi, Y., & Federico, F. (2017). The impact of health information technology on patient safety. Saudi Medical Journal, 38(12), 1173–1180. doi: 10.15537/smj.2017.12.20631
Buurman, B. M., Verhaegh, K. J., Smeulers, M., Vermeulen, H., Geerlings, S. E., Smorenburg, S., & Rooij, S. E. D. (2016). Improving handoff communication from hospital to home: the development, implementation, and evaluation of a personalized patient discharge letter. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 28(3), 384–390. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzw046
Fucik, S. (2019). Standardized bedside handoff: One organization’s journey. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 44, 133–136. doi: 10.1016/j.pedn.2018.11.002
Lee, S.-H., Phan, P. H., Dorman, T., Weaver, S. J., & Pronovost, P. J. (2016). Handoffs, safety culture, and practices: evidence from the hospital survey on patient safety culture. BMC Health Services Research, 16(1). doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1502-7
Müller, M., Jürgens, J., Redaèlli, M., Klingberg, K., Hautz, W. E., & Stock, S. (2018). Impact of the communication and patient handoff tool SBAR on patient safety: a systematic review. BMJ Open, 8(8). doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022202