Telemedicine for Interfacility Nurse Handoffs.

OBJECTIVE: To compare nurse preparedness and quality of patient handoff during interfacility transfers from a pretransfer emergency department to a PICU when conducted over telemedicine versus telephone. DESIGN: Cross-sectional nurse survey linked with patient electronic medical record data using multivariable, multilevel analysis. SETTING: Tertiary PICU within an academic children's hospital. PARTICIPANTS: PICU nurses who received a patient handoff between October 2017 and July 2018. INTERVENTIONS: None. MAIN RESULTS AND MEASUREMENTS: Among 239 eligible transfers, 106 surveys were completed by 55 nurses (44% survey response rate). Telemedicine was used for 30 handoffs (28%), and telephone was used for 76 handoffs (72%). Patients were comparable with respect to age, sex, race, primary spoken language, and insurance, but handoffs conducted over telemedicine involved patients with higher illness severity as measured by the Pediatric Risk of Mortality III score (4.4 vs 1.9; p = 0.05). After adjusting for Pediatric Risk of Mortality III score, survey recall time, and residual clustering by nurse, receiving nurses reported higher preparedness (measured on a five-point adjectival scale) following telemedicine handoffs compared with telephone handoffs (3.4 vs 3.1; p = 0.02). There were no statistically significant differences in both bivariable and multivariable analyses of handoff quality as measured by the Handoff Clinical Evaluation Exercise. Handoffs using telemedicine were associated with increased number of Illness severity, Patient summary, Action list, Situation awareness and contingency planning, Synthesis by receiver components (3.3 vs 2.8; p = 0.04), but this difference was not significant in the adjusted analysis (3.1 vs 2.9; p = 0.55). CONCLUSIONS: Telemedicine is feasible for nurse-to-nurse handoffs of critically ill patients between pretransfer and receiving facilities and may be associated with increased perceived and objective nurse preparedness upon patient arrival. Additional research is needed to demonstrate that telemedicine during nurse handoffs improves communication, decreases preventable adverse events, and impacts family and provider satisfaction.

Interprofessional Huddle: One Children's Hospital's Approach to Improving Patient Flow.

Admitting pediatric patients promptly to the appropriate unit where they can receive specialty care is of critical importance to safe, quality care. A daily morning huddle was implemented at one children's hospital as a quality improvement project. The aim of this project was to improve patient flow throughout the children's hospital by improving interprofessional and interdepartmental communication and collaboration. This article reports on changes in patient flow before and after implementation of the daily huddle, as measured by pediatric emergency department (ED) boarding times. This retrospective, descriptive study was conducted at a regional children's hospital within an academic hospital. Data were collected from the electronic medical record over two separate time periods coinciding with pre/post-huddle implementation. Non-random, purposive sampling was used, resulting in a prehuddle sample (n = 450) and post-huddle sample (n = 329). Times were significantly shorter after huddle implementation compared to pre-huddle (p < 0.001) from admission orders in the ED to transfer to the PICU or pediatric ward. The median time decreased from 3.0 to 2.6 hours post-huddle implementation. These findings suggest huddles as one potential factor in the formula to improve patient flow from the ED by enhancing interprofessional and interdepartmental collaboration and communication. Findings from this study are of vital importance to pediatric patients, nurses, and physicians. Promptly admitting patients from the ED to the appropriate unit where they can receive needed specialty care that potentially improves the quality and safety of patient care is paramount. Further research is needed to determine what format and contexts the huddle can be utilized to facilitate efficient patient flow and improve patient outcomes.

Antibiotic sampling from central venous catheters versus peripheral veins.

This study was developed to determine if there are statistically or clinically significant differences in antibiotic levels of blood samples obtained from a central venous catheter (CVC) versus a peripheral vein. Currently there is limited and contradictory information comparing aminoglycoside levels drawn from a central line used for antibiotic infusions versus a separate peripheral blood draw. In this study antibiotic levels drawn from a central line were compared with levels drawn simultaneously from a peripheral vein. Significant clinical and statistical differences were identified based on the type of central catheter in place.