Translating evidence-based nursing clinical handover practice in an acute care setting: A quasi-experimental study

Effective transfer of information during the nursing handover contributes to patient safety. This study aimed to translate the best practice nursing shift handover recommendations in an acute care setting using the Ottawa Model for Research Use and to explore its effect on patient adverse outcomes (falls, pressure injuries, and medication errors). Using a quasi-experimental design, the study was conducted in four internal medicine wards in a major tertiary hospital. A total of 88 nurses and 110 patients participated in 152 handover observations. The findings showed clinically important increases in percentages and odds of nurses' compliance with shift handover recommendations after the intervention. The patient adverse outcomes after the intervention were compared to the corresponding period of previous year. A reduction was observed for all adverse patient outcomes with incident rate ratios of 0.762 (p = 0.027) for falls, 0.624 for pressure injuries (p = 0.010), and 0.782 for medication errors (p = 0.023). Replicating this study's methodology across multiple clinical settings will increase the generalizability of findings and provide further evidence to inform nursing practice and policy.

Proposing a New Conceptual Model and an Exemplar Measure Using Health Information: Technology to Examine the Impact of Relational Nurse Continuity on Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers

The influence of the staffing variable relational nurse continuity on patient outcomes has been rarely studied and with inconclusive results. Multiple definitions and an absence of systematic methods for measuring the influence of continuity have resulted in its exclusion from nurse-staffing studies and conceptual models. We present a new conceptual model and an innovative use of health information technology to measure relational nurse continuity and to demonstrate the potential for bringing the results of big data science back to the bedside. Understanding the power of big data to address critical clinical issues may foster a new direction for nursing administration theory development.