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In this lesson we are going to talk about communicating with other nurses.
So you will obviously be communicating with nurses all the time at work. We’ll go over some basics of how you can optimize the communication even on bad days. There are some common scenarios in which you will be communicating with other nurses. Some of these are handover, team huddles, resuscitation or procedures, debriefing and then just daily communication with your team. All of them are important so let’s go through some tips for how to do it well! For handover, doing it at the bedside is considered to be the safest, most accurate and effective way to go. It just ensures that you are talking about the right patient and that you can check fluids, oxygen, meds and patient safety together before shift change.
During handover, it is super important that the nurse taking over patient care has all the information they need to keep the patient safe. The best way to do this is to be structured. SBAR, which we talked about in communicating with providers and I-PASS are two formats that are commonly used for handover. SBAR stands for Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendations. I-PASS stands for Illness severity, Patient summary, Action list, Situation awareness and Synthesis by the receiver. I really like I-PASS because it prompts you to get at the heart of things. How sick is this patient, what’s going on with them and what do I need to be doing about it. Synthesis by receiver just means that the person receiving handover verbally acknowledges that they understand what the plan is.
And the last piece of advice I would give you is to think about what YOU would want to know. So for example, when I’m coming on shift and taking care of a patient whose family has just logged an official complaint against the hospital or something crazy like that, I want to know that. Please don’t let the oncoming nurse walk into a patient room unprepared for unique or awkward social dynamics.
Daily encounters are really all about teamwork.
Some of the best ways to create a good team are to be willing to help out and then just honestly to try and be polite. For about a year I worked as a float nurse- so I was always moving in and out of different teams. During this time I got to see a lot of good communication and bad communication. The good teams helped each other and were nice. The bad teams worked alone and barely spoke to each other- and they were miserable!
For procedures and emergencies, smile are less important and clear and direct communication should be top priority. Closed loop communication is big part of this because it ensures that the communication was effective and accurate.
Debriefing is also important following procedures and events so that teams can talk about what happened, process it and learn from it.
Okay so let’s recap- For handover and procedures, it’s important to be structured so that you can ensure that all the important information is given. SBAR, I-PASS and closed loop communication are the most common tools.
Teamwork really is the goal with all of it. You need to be able to depend on your team and just like have an enjoyable time at work- so help others, as for help, be polite and smile!
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