Emergency handover of critical patients. A systematic review

Evaluation of emergency service nurses' patient handover and affecting factors: A descriptive study

“…In this study, most of the nurses used the patient observation form (nursing records) as the patient handover form, and they stated that they wanted to use a form specially developed for the emergency room and emergency nurses as the patient handover form. In the literature, it is reported that nurses in emergency rooms see filling out an additional form as a waste of time and keeping a comprehensive written report as a challenge [10,19,28]. These results showed that the forms used by emergency room nurses for effective and adequate handover are not at the desired level.…”

“…During patient handover, emergency nurses should report the patient's name and surname, the name and surname of the doctor carrying out admission, application complaints, planned treatments, tests performed, tests ongoing and to be performed, patient's diagnosis, vital signs, patient's allergies, intravenous fluid therapies, level of consciousness, and invasive procedures in the oral and written reports [9]. Tortosa-Alted et al (2021) reported that emergency care nurses generally tended to perform the handover orally instead of through a written handover report due to the chaotic and critical environment of the emergency room, and, consequently, this may lead to suspicions regarding patient safety [10]. Moreover, studies on enhancing handover processes in emergency rooms recommend that trainings should be provided for promoting nurses' awareness of effective handover processes and structured, comprehensive and easy-to-apply handover forms that are quickly completed [18,19].…”

“…Evidence shows that bedside handover improves patient safety, quality of care, and continuity of nursing care as patient proximity is maintained. However, in practice, the most popular places for handover were corridor and computer stations [3,10,21].…”

“…Patients in critical condition who have minimal physiological well-being require on-time acute care [7,8], and handover in an emergency situation may be the only chance for nurses to transfer patient information in a limited time [9]. Due to all these factors, handover in emergency situations causes alarming concern in terms of patient safety not only for researchers, but also for emergency room health care workers and national and international organizations [10]. Additionally, it has been stated that communication is one of the basic components of safe patient care during the transfer of patient information from one nurse to another [3].…”

Transition of care: Nurses' perception in an emergency service

“…Centrando esta problemática na dinâmica do serviço de urgência, o objetivo de assegurar um adequado fluxo de informação configura-se como um desafio maior, decorrente do elevado número de doentes, da afluência dos mesmos que não é constante, assim como das intervenções de enfermagem associadas à instabilidade clínica do doente, constituindo, por isso, um risco elevado de partilha inadequada de informação entre profissionais de saúde (Sanjuan-Quiles et al, 2019). Esta ideia é também partilhada por Heilman et al (2016) e Tortosa-Alted et al (2021, quando afirmam que a transição de cuidados num serviço de urgência/emergência configura um cenário de alto risco, sendo mesmo considerado por parte dos profissionais de saúde e organizações internacionais um problema preocupante para a segurança do doente.…”