Impact of a blended curriculum on nursing handover quality: a quality improvement project

BMJ Open Quality

article

Xavier Losfeld¹  Laure Istas²  Quentin Schoonvaere²  Michel Vergnion¹  Jochen Bergs³ 

[1] Emergency Department;Platform for Continuous Improvement of Quality of Care and Patient Safety;Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences , Hasselt University;Department of Healthcare , PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts

关键词: hand-off;    patient safety;    implementation science;   

DOI  :  10.1136/bmjoq-2020-001024

学科分类：药学

来源: BMJ Publishing Group

【 摘 要 】

Context and objective The negative consequences of inadequate nursing handovers on patient safety are widely acknowledged, both within the literature as in practice. Evidence regarding strategies to improve nursing handover is, however, lacking. This study investigates the effect of a tailored, blended curriculum on nurses’ perception of handover quality.Methods We used a pre-test/post-test design within four units of a Belgian general hospital. Our educational intervention consisted of an e-learning module on professional communication and a face-to-face session on the use of a structured method for handovers. All nurses completed this blended curriculum (n=87). We used the Handover Evaluation Scale (HES) to evaluate nurses’ perception of handover quality before and after the intervention. The HES was answered by 87.4% of the nurses (n=76 of 87) before and 50.6% (n=44 of 87) after the intervention. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the validity of the HES.Results The original factor structure did not fit with our data. We identified a new HES structure with acceptable or good fit indices. The overall internal consistency of our HES structure was considered adequate. Perception of nurses on Relevance of information showed a significant improvement (M=53.19±4.33 vs M=61.03±6.01; p=0.04). Nurses also felt that the timely provision of patient information improved significantly (M=4.50±0.34 vs M=5.16±0.40; p=0.01).Conclusion The applied intervention resulted in an improved awareness on the importance of Relevance of information during handovers. After our intervention, the nurses’ perception of the HES item ‘Patient information is provided in a timely manner’ also improved significantly. We are aware that the educational intervention is only the first step to achieve the long-term implementation of a culture of professional communication based on mutual support.

【 授权许可】

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