Clinical Nurse Specialist-Driven Practice Change: Standardizing Vital Sign Monitoring.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to standardize vital sign (VS) monitoring throughout a patient's stay in the hospital, including at admission, following transitions to different levels of care, reassessment of abnormal VS results, daily monitoring, and before dismissal. The population of focus was adult general and progressive care patients. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT: Standards for VS monitoring, documentation, and provider notification were established. Unit routines, nursing procedural guidelines, and order sets were updated with the new standards. Nursing staff received Web-based education. Compliance with the new standards was monitored monthly, and data were shared with nursing leadership. Leadership reviewed the data with nursing staff to identify opportunities and recognize achievements. OUTCOMES: Overall, improvement in VS documentation was achieved. Continued opportunities exist for monitoring and reassessment of a full set of VSs after an abnormal result. CONCLUSION: Establishing a minimum standard of VS frequency and documentation allows for all healthcare providers to trend and monitor a patient's clinical status. Variability in patient care can be diminished by establishing minimum standards of VS monitoring.

Bedside nurse-to-nurse handoff promotes patient safety.

UNLABELLED: Nurse-to-nurse beside handoff allows the oncoming nurse to visualize the patient and ask questions of the previous nurse. It encourages pateints to be involved actively in their care and allows standardized communication between nursing shifts. BACKGROUND: Patient handoff between nurses at shift change has been an important process in clinical nursing practice, allowing nurses to exchange necessary patient information to ensure continuity of care and patient safety. Bedside handoff allows the patient the ability to contribute to his or her plan of care. It also allows the oncoming nurse an opportunity to visualize the patient and ask questions. This is critical in meeting the Joint Commission's 2009 National Patient Safety Goals. It encourages patients to be involved actively in their care and it implements standardized handoff communication between nursing shifts. Bedside handoff promotes patient safety and allows an opportunity for patients to correct misconceptions. METHODS: A convenience sample of 60 patients was enrolled, 30 before the practice change and 30 after the change. All nursing staff were invited to participate. Both patients and staff were given self-designed surveys before and after the practice change. RESULTS: Fifteen nurses with a mean of 2 years in the profession completed the pre- and post-survey. A majority of staff were not satisfied with the current shift change report, but statistical improvement was achieved after the practice change. Also, statistical improvement was achieved with patients' satisfaction with involvement in their plan of care. CONCLUSIONS: Use of bedside nursing handoff promotes staff accountability, two-person IV medication reconciliation, and patient satisfaction.