Nurses' Leadership in Transfer-of-Care Communication: Best Practices - Annotated Bibliography

Chard, R., & Makary, M. A. (2015). Transfer-of-care communication: nursing best practices. AORN journal, 102(4), 329-342.

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The article by Chard and Makary defines the effectiveness and the safety of transferring a patient from one stage of health care to another stage as dependent on noncompulsory communication through the entire team. The article reveals that nurses are always found in the natural position of leadership to enhance their practice of safety when they are handing over. More importantly, the study has delved on the idea that understanding the patient wholly, provides the perioperative nurses with an opportunity to detect several issues and to select on the appropriate nursing diagnosis depending on the fundamental components of the goals and needs of such patients. Thus, the study has focused on the information that should be provided to the patient by the nurses in the process of transferring the patient. More imperatively, the study has reviewed suitable communication during the transfer of patients from one care to the other. Such communication may allow perioperative nurses to be more active as well as play a critical role in the process of handing over.

Dietz, A. S., Pronovost, P. J., Mendez-Tellez, P. A., Wyskiel, R., Marsteller, J. A., Thompson, D. A., & Rosen, M. A. (2014). A systematic review of teamwork in the intensive care unit: what do we know about teamwork, team tasks, and improvement strategies?. Journal of critical care, 29(6), 908-914.

The purpose of the research is to address team tasks, teamwork, and strategies for team implementation in the ICU; to realize the strength and limitations of the available skills to help give directions on further research. The research methodology was centered on ICU, intervention for quality improvement through training, and teamwork. The research utilized several studies that were based on issues such as team tasks, teamwork, and team intervention in the ICU for its inclusion. The research found that teamwork is highly investigated in several studies and the type of task. The way the team factor is described varies across different research. The study revealed that goal and strategy formulation has been the most popular team task that is involved in the studies. More significantly, the study has confirmed that both training and structural protocols are the most commonly executed quality enhancement strategies in many studies. Notably, team study is increasing within the ICU, but low-hanging fruits are available to further increase the study of teamwork within the ICU if it can be addressed. The functional nature of the tasks need to be reported to assist in examining the level at which the study findings may generalize in other works.

Kalisch, B. J., Aebersold, M., McLaughlin, M., Tschannen, D., & Lane, S. (2015). An intervention to improve nursing teamwork using virtual simulation. Western journal of nursing research, 37(2), 164-179.

The study by Kalisch et al. aims at testing the utilization of virtual simulation to enhance teamwork among nurses in the clinical environment. More significantly, the article presents a viability study that focuses on the utilization of virtual simulation to develop teamwork for the nurses in the workplace. The study method used a quasi-experimental design and a sample of 43 nursing staff, taken from one care unit for patients and the nurses participated in a session of one hour. Also, the study focused on problems that are common for the nursing staff when they work as a team in the clinical environment. The study indicated an overall significant improvement of teamwork from M=3.25, SD=0.58 up to a post-intervention indicating M=3.49, SD=0.67, with a probability of less than 0.012. Additionally, the intervention also demonstrated significant impacts on the measures of teamwork subscribers including team orientation, team backup, and team trust.

Wolf, D. M., & Morouse, K. M. (2015). Using Blogs to Support Informatics Nurses' Curriculum Needs. Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI), 19(2).

The article provides information based on how new online course specifically for the nursing informatics graduates students can embrace innovative technology in meeting the necessities of their patients virtually. More importantly, the students can understand how to develop a blog that can be used to address several healthcare needs of a particular population. In the ancient period, nursing professionals were perceived by the patients as the bedside caregivers in the hospital. But in the contemporary world, such professionals have increased to involve nurse researchers, community nurses, telehealth nurses, and informatics nurses among others. The article used different course assignments and objectives that were also supported by 14 weeks of a described curricular content. The study focused on the following: exploring empowered patients, and understanding the principles based on legality, security, and privacy. The behaviors of the patients were also considered as well as several other issues including technology used in the telehealth, understanding of the telehealth services and the tools required to deliver the services. Based on the literature, the study found that web technology gives an innovative tool that involves the users and direct the audience to receive appropriate information. The use of wiki and blog can form an online education for patients. Notably, giving patients valid and current information provides them with the opportunity to be very active in the decision making regarding their healthcare.

Bender, M. (2016). Clinical nurse leader integration into practice: developing theory to guide best practice. Journal of Professional Nursing, 32(1), 32-40.

The research aims at developing a theoretical model of a clinical nurse leader integration practice as well as the implementation. The model also gives an insight into the preliminary roadmap for the steps involved in the success of clinical nurse leaders. The study reflects the absence of the literature based on a theoretical framework for guiding standards that are applied in the clinical nurse leader practices. The study used an interpretive synthesis that is based on theoretical analysis of the perception of clinical nurse leader that aims at developing a theoretical model for the nurse leader practice, that also involve reanalysis and reinterpretation of text-based evidence. Such texts were identified through sampling of literature. The study performed a grey search in Google, and the study was based on a quantitative and comparative methods. The study result indicated a description of the quality appraisal sampling strategy and the details of the report. The study identified the major domains of the clinical nurse leaders practice that included preparation for the practice, structuring of the workflow the practicing activities and the result of such activities.

Gunawan, J., & Aungsuroch, Y. (2017). Managerial competence of firstline nurse managers: A concept analysis. International journal of nursing practice, 23(1), e12502.

The study by Gunawan and Aungsuroch is based on concept analysis and aims at clarifying what according to the principles of managerial competence refer to as the first-line nurse managers internationally, the attributes that signify it, as well as the analysis of its antecedence and the outcome. The study applied the concept of Walker and Avant analysis approach. According to the study, the attributes of the managerial competencies include organizing, planning, leading, managing, healthcare delivery, and self-development. Both internal and external factors comprise of the antecedent managerial capabilities. More imperatively, the outcomes include issues like the patients and nurse satisfaction, intention for nurses to stay, performance by the nurses and patient and nurse outcome. The concept analysis study assists first-line nurse managers in understanding the idea and defines the role underpinning the description of managerial competence. It is worth noting that the managers should have the appropriate knowledge of the external and internal factors as the determinants of the concept. Future research should focus on the attributes of the managerial competencies regarding the antecedence and the possible impacts, as well as the need to form a managerial competency evaluation.

Graan, S. M., Botti, M., Wood, B., & Redley, B. (2016). Nursing handover from ICU to cardiac ward: Standardised tools to reduce safety risks. Australian Critical Care, 29(3), 165-171.

The study seeks to adapt as well as evaluating the evidence-based tools used for standard clinical nursing handover in the process of transferring the patient with cardiac surgery from ICU to the cardiac ward to eliminate risks to the safety of the patient. The research was conducted in a private hospital using level 3 ICU comprising of high turnover and 15 beds, with 46 beds of the cardiac surgical ward. The study collected ethical approval from the hospital, as well as the associate university. The study found that nurses use such tools perpetually, increased readiness to receive patients in the cardiac ward, regular checking of the patients' identity, improved delivery of the handover at the bedside, and enhanced communication of detailed information. Consistency of care and the existence of an improved strategy encourage prompt feedback to patient weakening. The adoption of the tools by nurses to standardize the transfer of cardiac patients from the ICU to the cardiac ward reduces the variation in handover and the safety of the risk of the patients.

Lake, E. T., Hallowell, S. G., Kutney-Lee, A., Hatfield, L. A., Del Guidice, M., Boxer, B., ... & Aiken, L. H. (2016). Higher quality of care and patient safety associated with better NICU work environments. Journal of nursing care quality, 31(1), 24.

The study aims at investigating the relationship between the NICU workplace and the report on the quality of healthcare, health safety and the relevant consequences linked to the infections as well as the readiness of the patient to get discharged. The study focused on the hospital with an adequate number of staff nurses from NICU to foster the reliability of NICU measures. Averagely, 7.3 nurses provided feedback in every hospital and the total number of hospitals was 171 with 1247 nurses. The study found approximately 6% of the nurses reporting fair quality of healthcare on their unit and around 20% reporting a poor grade on the patients' safety in their unit. Also, approximately 16% of the nurses reported regular infections that could occur once or more every month in their unit. The study recorded a significant result on nurses who are not confident with the care that parents can give to their infants after getting a discharge. A few nurses recorded poor quality and safety results due to an improved work environment. Safety and quality vary in different hospitals and the work environment is a fundamental factor to determine NICU results.

Phillips, J. M., Stalter, A. M., Dolansky, M. A., & Lopez, G. M. (2016). Fostering future leadership in quality and safety in health care through systems thinking. Journal of Professional Nursing, 32(1), 15-24.

The study seeks to investigate a teaching strategy for a combination of system thinking, connecting the BSN essentials and the QSEN competencies in the RN-BSN completion program that develops safety and quality leadership in healthcare. The article establishes a model of system awareness level that helps the students in achieving competencies in safety and quality healthcare system. The study reveals that the practicing RNs are acquiring the BSN education as more significant to their...