NURS FPX 4035 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

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Capella university

NURS-FPX4035 Enhancing Patient Safety and Quality of Care

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Enhancing Quality and Safety

The handover process of patients in hospital emergency departments represents critical safety points that determine healthcare outcomes. Hospital patient transitions become more dangerous when communication fails, leading to errors, delayed treatment, and negative effects. Emergency department patients face increased risks due to time limitations, complex cases, and nonstandard handoff procedures, which become more challenging in this high-pressure environment. This paper examines emergency department patient handoff errors while investigating evidence-based communication methods to reduce risks and establish nurses’ care coordination roles. The essential stakeholders who will help decrease costs and improve patient safety are also recognized in this paper.

Factors Leading to Patient Safety Risk

The combination of poor communication and limited time, along with complicated medical care, creates substantial safety hazards during handoffs in emergency department hospitals. Literature reviews indicate that communication protocol noncompliance and misinterpretations in emergency department (ED) chaos cause approximately 80% of severe medical errors in patient handoff. Professional handoff processes account for between 24% and 24% of reported medical malpractice in emergency departments (Kinney-Sandefur, 2024). The risk factors cause emergency staff to rush handoffs, which increases the chance of transferring wrong or incomplete information. The combination of poor verbal communication and insufficient documentation functions as a key element that causes ineffective handover. 

Time constraints exacerbate the problem. Medical staff operating in emergency departments experience high pressure to deliver accurate and timely services. Communication breakdowns or unclear information transfer in a hectic healthcare setting account for up to 70% of healthcare delivery outcomes and roughly 50% of handover event outcomes (Atinga et al., 2024). Patients admitted to the emergency department require complex medical treatments that demand provider collaboration for successful management. Without established handoff procedures, the delivery of coordinated care and the duration of patient stay are more likely to suffer fragmentation. 

Solutions to Improve Patient Safety and Reduce Costs 

Evidence-based handoff protocols decrease hospital emergency department costs while simultaneously boosting patient safety standards. The most effective standard communication tool used today is SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation). SBAR establishes an organized structure that healthcare practitioners use to maintain clear, consistent communication while reducing the chance of misunderstandings and information omissions. Research shows that nursing handovers, patient satisfaction, and healthcare professional acceptance of the SBAR technique experience significant changes (Ghosh et al., 2021). SBAR delivers cost reductions to healthcare organizations through its capability to enhance communication accuracy, improve documentation and billing processes, and reduce payment errors. The structured format creates clearer patient handoffs, minimizing expenses and critical mistakes during transitions. 

Handoff efficiency and accuracy stand as one evidence-based technology implementation strategy. Healthcare providers can use electronic health records (EHRs) with handoff templates to achieve real-time system updates without requiring memory reports (Tataei et al., 2023). Conducting shift reports at patients’ beds promotes understanding between patients and families, which leads to better patient involvement while minimizing communication confusion. Patient safety and the reduction of preventable errors result in lower costs because of these best practices. Healthcare spending waste stems from medication mistakes, delayed medical care, and extended hospital stays due to inadequate handoff practices. Precisely, preventable adverse events cost billions of dollars per year. Structured handoff processes in hospitals have the potential to reduce legal liabilities, increase utilization of resources, and enhance efficiency in terms of patient care and healthcare organisations.

Nursing Coordination for Patient Safety and Reducing Costs 

Nurses coordinate patient handoffs to improve safety and reduce hospital ED costs. As primary caregivers, nurses are responsible for providing continuity of care by checking critical patient information before, during, and after transfers. An integral part of this strategy includes active involvement in multidisciplinary rounds, where nurses work with other healthcare providers to design care plans and attend to disparities that can arise before a patient is transferred. Enhancing these types of communication makes for less miscommunication and less costly medical errors, even proactively (Shirley et al., 2024). 

Reinforcing closed-loop communication is another important role that nurses play, ensuring the receiving provider has received and understood the handoff information. This avoids errors like not having the test done or the wrong medication, which can contribute to adverse events and increased health care costs. For instance, a nurse handing off a sepsis patient to the incoming team ensures that the incoming team knows that antibiotic administration is urgent to avoid deterioration and that the ICU admission and treatment expenses are reduced.

Furthermore, nurses should efficiently promote their patients’ safety using electronic handoff tools. They also facilitate handoff discussions between healthcare workers, patients, and families to engage the family in the care actively, which has been shown to reduce readmissions and improve overall hospital efficiency (Bucknall et al., 2020). These efforts help nurses reduce financial burdens on healthcare institutions and increase safety.

Stakeholders’ Involvement in Nursing Coordination 

Patient handoffs in the hospital ED are effective only if several stakeholders collaborate to improve quality and safety. Physicians depend on accurate handoff information to make timely clinical decisions. Therefore, nurses must coordinate with them. This can lead to treatment delays, put the patients at risk, and raise healthcare costs (Jemal et al., 2021). Stakeholders that are critical to the verification of medication orders during transitions include pharmacists. By coordinating with pharmacists, poor handoff communication can be prevented from causing medication errors. Since medication errors are responsible for billions of dollars wasted on needless healthcare each year, controlling them with a strong policy of collaboration and communication not only protects patient safety and costs. 

Hospital administrators implement standardized handoff protocols and provide resources such as electronic handoff tools and staff training programs. Their support allows nurses to spend time and have the infrastructure to perform safe and effective handoffs. Handoff-related errors are analysed by patient safety officers, quality improvement teams, and policies are developed to address communication breakdowns. They provide input to help refine hospital procedures to align with the best practices. Finally, patients and their families are also important stakeholders, and bedside handoffs involving them lead to better care continuity and lower readmission (Bucknall et al., 2020). Nurses can also coordinate with these stakeholders to improve patient safety, increase workflow efficiency, and decrease unnecessary healthcare expenses. 

Conclusion

Hospital emergency department handoffs provide essential benefits to patient safety and hospital cost reduction. The delivery of poor handoff information leads to medical errors and delayed treatment, while raising hospital expenses. These risks become reducible through technology implementation, standardized communication protocols, and interdisciplinary collaboration promotion. Nurses act as vital forces to enhance communication and prevent errors while managing patient care. Adding important stakeholders, including doctors, pharmacists, administrators, and patients during stage three, enhances handoff procedures to a greater extent. Healthcare organizations focus on structured handoffs because they improve quality and efficiency through optimal emergency care resource management, lower adverse events, and superior patient outcomes.

References

Atinga, R. A., Gmaligan, M. N., Ayawine, A., & Yambah, J. K. (2024). “It’s the patient that suffers from poor communication”: Analysing communication gaps and associated consequences in handover events from nurses’ experiences. SSM – Qualitative Research in Health, 6, 100482–100482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2024.100482

Bucknall, T. K., Hutchinson, A. M., Botti, M., McTier, L., Rawson, H., Hitch, D., Hewitt, N., Digby, R., Fossum, M., McMurray, A., Marshall, A. P., Gillespie, B. M., & Chaboyer, W. (2020). Engaging patients and families in communication across transitions of care: An integrative review. Patient Education and Counseling, 103(6), 1104–1117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.01.017 

NURS FPX 4035 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

Ghosh, S., Ramamoorthy, L., & pottakat, B. (2021). Impact of structured clinical handover protocol on communication and patient satisfaction. Journal of Patient Experience, 8(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374373521997733

Jemal, M., Kure, M. A., Gobena, T., & Geda, B. (2021). Nurse–physician communication in patient care and associated factors in public hospitals of Harari regional state and Dire-Dawa city administration, Eastern Ethiopia: A multicenter-mixed methods study. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 14(1), 2315–2331. https://doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s320721 

Kinney-Sandefur, A. V. (2024). Improving patient handoff in the emergency department microsystem. University of New Hampshire Scholars’ Repository. https://scholars.unh.edu/thesis/1799

Shirley, S. G. A., Abdullah, B. F., & Dioso, R. I. (2024). Enhancing teamwork through effective handover practices among nurses in elder care setting. The Malaysian Journal of Nursing, 15(04), 100–108. https://doi.org/10.31674/mjn.2024.v15i04.0012 

NURS FPX 4035 Assessment 1 Enhancing Quality and Safety

Tataei, A., Rahimi, B., Afshar, H. L., Alinejad, V., Jafarizadeh, H., & Parizad, N. (2023). The effects of electronic nursing handover on patient safety in general (non-covid-19) and COVID-19 intensive care units: A quasi-experimental study. BMC Health Services Research, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09502-8