Scholarly article reference tracker2/18/2023 ![]() ![]() Communication failure risk to patient safety is always a topic of discussion for researchers, health care providers, administrators, and regulatory agencies.Ĭommunication problems are multidimensional, being influenced by technology, personnel, process, information design, and biology itself. ![]() Achievement of this objective through a consistent, structured, and reproducible means will likely lead to improved patient satisfaction and outcomes. Within the context of contemporary interdisciplinary teams providing care for patients, sharing the patient information should be aimed at ensuring a common understanding of the individual patient’s care plans and expectations. Loss of situational awareness could lead to adverse events and hence compromise the patient care. Sharing patient-specific health care information during handoff requires situational awareness, which is an understanding of a patient’s current condition and clinical trajectory. Challenges of communication in health care The aim of this paper is to review the challenges of communication among health care providers in clinical setting, to review the use of the standardized Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation (SBAR) communication tool during handoff, and to compare the SBAR tool with other communication tools to assess the communication during patient handoff. A structured communication tool would be beneficial to effectively communicate the patient information, reduce the adverse events, promote patient safety, improve the quality of care, and increase health care provider satisfaction. Nurse-physician communication is subject to the effects of differences in training and reporting expectations. It is reported that differences in communication styles between nurses and physician are one of the contributing factors to the communication errors. Ĭommunication errors among health care providers are complicated by a hierarchical reporting structure, gender, education, cultural background, stress, fatigue, ethnic differences, and social structure. The aim identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is to provide a safe, patient-centered, timely, effective, efficient, and equitable health care. The Joint Commission has introduced the National Patient Safety Goal to improve the communication among caregivers. The consequences of failed communication during handoff are medication errors, inaccurate patient plans, delay in transfer of a patient to critical care, delay in hospital discharge, and repetitive tests among others. ![]() The Joint Commission reviewed a total of 936 sentinel events during the year of 2015 communication was identified as the root cause in more than 70% of serious medical errors. Effective communication is therefore central to safe and effective patient care. The handoff from one health care provider to another is recognized to be vulnerable to communication failures. This narrative review has highlighted the challenges of communication among health care providers, use of the SBAR tool for effective handoff and transfer of patient care in various health care settings, and comparison of SBAR tool with other communication tools to assess the effective communication and limitations of SBAR communication tool.Ī handoff between health care providers is the key factor in fostering continuity of care and providing safe patient care. SBAR is a reliable and validated communication tool which has shown a reduction in adverse events in a hospital setting, improvement in communication among health care providers, and promotion of patient safety. ![]() The Joint Commission, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI), and World Health Organization (WHO) recognize SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) as an effective communication tool for patients’ handoff. Challenges of communication among health care providers are not limited to differences in training and reporting expectations. In the hospital setting, most of the communication related to patient care occurs between nurses and physicians. Sharing patient-specific health care information during handoff requires situational awareness. Communication failure in a health care setting could lead to serious medical errors. Effective communication is a vital factor in providing safe patient care. Continuity of patient care is achieved by the clear and concise transfer of patient clinical information from one health care provider to another during handoff. ![]()
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