A Systematic Review of the Literature on Bedside Shift Reports

AbstractIn 2017, The Joint Commission issued a sentinel event alert regarding inadequate nurse hand-off communication. Inadequate hand-off communication can lead to medication errors, delay in treatment, falls, and wrong-site surgery. To help ensure safe handoff of care between nurses by involving the patient and family, bedside shift report was created. Bedside shift report was developed to help improve patient safety and quality, patient experience of care, nursing staff satisfaction and time management, and accountability between nurses. Despite the implementation of bedside shift report in nursing practice, it continues to be inconsistently applied, which poses risks to patients and can lead to unsuccessful sustainability of bedside shift report. The purpose of this systematic review was to determine whether the literature provides evidence that with successful dissemination and implementation, nursing bedside shift reporting reduces medical errors, adverse outcomes, treatment delays, and inaccurate or missing information, while providing benefits in the acute-care setting. The theories used to guide the bedside nursing project included Peplau’s theory of interpersonal relations and Lewin’s theory of planned change. The systematic literature review included a comprehensive search outlined in a PRISMA flowchart to analyze and synthesize 15 relevant studies. The findings of this systematic review supported the importance of nursing bedside shift report but lacked research on how to support the sustainability of nursing bedside shift report after implementation. Consistent bedside shift report can result in a positive social change by improving nursing performance and promoting positive patient outcomes, but careful consideration to continuation of the practice change is necessary