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Regulatory Standards for Safe Patient Handoffs

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American Nursing Association (ANA), founded in 1955, is a leading regulatory body in

nursing that aims at improving the nursing profession by ensuring an ethical and safe

environment for working and ensuring high standards of care in nursing are adhered to. ANA's

mission statement is to lead the profession to shape the future of healthcare and nursing.

According to a report by American Nursing Association, ANA ensures the quality practice of

nurses by ensuring they are not fatigued in offering their services and maintaining high standards

of care (Trossman 2019). Hence ensuring standard protocols are followed.

Continuity of quality care in patients is achieved through the handoff process and the

clear transfer of patient records from one medical clinician to another. The method may seem

simple and unmounted, but a high-quality handoff is time-consuming and complex (Shahid et al.,

2018). Nurses are always at the forefront of developing policies and protocols that ensure that

patient handoff is professional and safe. During handoffs, miscommunication or lack of enough

information leads to sentinel and many other adverse effects, therefore jeopardizing patient

handling and safety.

Effective handoffs of patients are an essential feature, particularly in Emergency

Departments (ED), since they often happen in different points of providers (Trossman 2019).

Handling the patient within various interdisciplinary teams during care provision should have the

same goal of the patient plan and the long-run expectation and outcomes. Yet, errors often occur

due to the complicated nature of the reporting structure, cultural background, stress, and fatigue

(Shahid et al., 2018). Differences in the styles of communication between the nurses and the

physicians leads to communication errors in handoffs. This is due to differences in training and

reporting outcomes and expectations, making them difficult in aligning with patient information.
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Conclusively, patient handoffs are critical in administering patient care, and if it is not up

to the required standard, the patient misses out on some vital procedures. It is therefore essential

if standardized approaches and tools to communication are adopted during handoffs. Healthcare

facilities could also identify the niche in their handoff process and train the nurses and physicians

on proper handovers since it directly affects the health outcomes of the facility.
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References

Shahid, S., & Thomas, S. (2018). The situation, background, assessment, recommendation

(SBAR) communication tool for handoff in health care–a narrative review. Safety in

Health, 4(1), 1-9. https://safetyinhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40886-018-

0073-1

Trossman. (2019, January 9). Consistent, quality communication. American Nurse Association.

https://www.myamericannurse.com/consistent-quality-communication/
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Appendix B

Demographic Information for Cummings et al. (2014)’s Review

If an appendix consists entirely of a table or figure, the title of the table or figure should serve as

the title of the appendix.