: The overarching purpose of this proposal is to evaluate the implementation of a comprehensive team communication strategy, resulting in an implementation toolkit that can be generalized to other settings of care. The primary goal is to improve patient safety by decreasing errors related to team communication failures in the hospital setting.
The specific aims i nclude: ? 1. Implementation of a standardized communication tool - the SBAR (a situational briefing model), as a scripting guide for communicating changes in patient status or needs. ? 2. Development and implementation of an escalation process tool to facilitate timely communication regarding changes in patient conditions. ? 3. Implementation of daily patient centered rounds to include all disciplines involved in the patient's care, including the use of a daily goals sheet. ? 4. Implementation of team huddles each shift - A quick briefing/meeting of a functional group to set the day/shift in motion by commentary with key personnel. ? ? The expected outcomes of this proposed safe practice intervention are: ? 1. Decreased communication failures among healthcare team members as a contributing factor in patient safety net reports. ? 2. Decreased overall adverse events, errors, or near misses as tracked by the University Healthsystems Consortium (UCH) Patient Safety Net. ? 3. Decrease time to treatment for non-emergent patient care situations that require phone consultation between physicians and nurses. ? 4. Improvement in a culture of patient safety through more effective team communication. ? ? This study is relevant to public health and safety as it has the potential to decrease medical errors and patient harm in the health care setting. Proactively addressing the reduction of medical errors as a means to facilitate patient safety is consistent with the mission of this agency which is a public safety net hospital. ? ?
