A Leadership Initiative to Improve Communication and Enhance Safety

Abstract

The EMPOWER project was a collaborative effort to promote a culture of patient safety at Danbury Hospital through an interdisciplinary leadership-driven communication program. The "EMPOWER" component includes Educating and Mentoring Paraprofessionals On Ways to Enhance Reporting of changes in patient status. Specifically, the EMPOWER program was designed to prepare paraprofessional staff (PPS) to communicate changes in patient status using SBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendations) structured communication. The specific project goals included (a) translation of SBAR structured communication methods for use with PPS, (b) reduction of cultural and educational barriers to interdisciplinary communication, and (c) examination of the effect of the EMPOWER intervention on the PPS communication practices and perceptions of the patient safety culture. Results of the project indicate a change in the use of SBAR throughout the institution, with particular improvement in communication from PPS to professional staff.

Complements or Substitutes? Culture–Technology Interactions in Healthcare

“…Previous operations management studies have measured broad aspects of patient safety culture, but combined those broad aspects into a single construct (McFadden et al., ; Boyer, Gardner, & Schweikhart, ). Others in the public policy and medical domains have used multiple dimensions of patient safety culture to investigate the relationship between safety culture and healthcare outcomes and how initiatives can improve safety culture (Singer et al., ; Singer, Lin, Falwell, Gaba, & Baker, ; Blegen et al., ; Mardon, Khanna, Sorra, Dyer, & Famolaro, ; Singer, Rosen, Zhao, Ciavarelli, & Gaba, ; Donahue, Miller, Smith, Dykes, & Fitzpatrick, ; Smits et al., ; Birkmeyer et al., ; Jones, Podila, & Powers, ). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which examines multiple dimensions of patient safety culture and how they interact with technology to affect outcomes.…”

Validation of a modified early warning score‐linked Situation‐Background‐Assessment‐Recommendation communication tool: A mixed methods study

“…The SBAR is appropriate for use by paraprofessional staff such as nurse aides (Donahue et al., ) and has been tested successfully in neonatal care in South Africa (Raymond & Harrison, ). Using a MEWS observations chart plus a SBAR tool, nurses might be better able to rescue deteriorating patients (Ludikhuize et al., ).…”

“…Since publication of the USA Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal on handovers (2007), the use of SBAR has been widely reported (Dawson et al., ; Staggers & Blaz, ). SBARs have been tested in interdisciplinary daily rounds (Cornell, Townsend Gervis, Yates, & Vardaman, ; Cornell, Townsend‐Gervis, Vardaman, & Yates, ; Townsend‐Gervis, Cornell, & Vardaman, ) and with diverse clinicians (Donahue, Miller, Smith, Dykes, & Fitzpatrick, ; Field et al., ; Randmaa et al., ). They provide a vehicle for clinicians to communicate clearly and concisely, thereby enhancing professionals' satisfaction with communication (Ardoin & Broussard, ; Renz, Boltz, Wagner, Capezuti, & Lawrence, ) and the hospital's safety climate (Ardoin & Broussard, ; Randmaa et al., ).…”

Integrating hand-off communication into undergraduate nursing clinical courses

“…Nursing students also conveyed feelings of confidence and empowerment in the performance of hand-off communication reports. [30] At the end of their program, nursing students who participated in these learning activities were able to provide a complete, clear, concise and effective hand-off communication to members of the healthcare team.…”