From the Guidelines
Effective communication during hospital transfers is crucial and requires a comprehensive written transfer summary and ideally an oral handover to the receiving healthcare providers, including all relevant medical information, as recommended by the most recent guideline 1. To achieve this, healthcare providers should utilize standardized handoff protocols such as SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) or I-PASS (Illness severity, Patient summary, Action list, Situation awareness, Synthesis) to ensure critical information is consistently exchanged. Some key points to consider when implementing effective communication techniques in hospital transfers include:
- Documenting complete patient details, including demographics, diagnosis, current medications with dosages, recent vital signs, lab results, and specific care requirements
- Utilizing face-to-face verbal handoffs supplemented with written documentation to minimize information loss
- Implementing closed-loop communication to confirm understanding through repetition of critical instructions
- Utilizing electronic health records to share comprehensive patient information securely between facilities
- Ensuring multidisciplinary involvement to contribute relevant information, while also including family members to maintain continuity of care preferences, as emphasized in earlier studies 1. These techniques are essential in reducing medical errors, preventing adverse events, and improving patient outcomes by addressing the vulnerability of transfer periods when communication breakdowns commonly occur. Regular training on these protocols and conducting post-transfer evaluations can help healthcare teams continuously improve their transfer communication processes, ultimately leading to better morbidity, mortality, and quality of life outcomes for patients.
From the Research
Communication Techniques in Hospital Transfers
- Effective communication is crucial during hospital transfers to ensure patient safety and satisfaction 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- The use of simple written templates can enhance communication between providers and improve the quality of transfer information 2
- Implementing communication protocols such as SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) can improve the consistency and effectiveness of communication during patient transfers 3, 6
- Breaking down communication errors into their elemental parts can help identify barriers to effective communication and enable more focused patient safety improvement efforts 4
- Teamwork and effective communication are essential for promoting patient safety, and tools such as SBAR can help improve communication and coordination between team members 5, 6
- Standardizing the handoff process and educating nurses on the expected procedure and documentation can help lower the risk of adverse patient events and improve patient safety 6